


There's No Place Like Home

by MissPuck



Series: Everything Must Belong Somewhere [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Espionage, F/M, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:03:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 73,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissPuck/pseuds/MissPuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>6/13/2015: I'm currently dealing with the unexpected death of someone extremely close to me. This work is on a hiatus until I've had time to grieve, and cope with this loss. I'm sorry.</p><p>Rated: R (language/violence/adult content)</p><p>Pairing: AU Skye/Ward, Clint/Natasha</p><p>Part One- There’s No Place Like Home</p><p>When Grant Ward ran away from his Military School to burn down his parent’s home, he didn’t expect to pick up an amateur hacker with a secret along the way. Now two teens with troubled pasts, and painful secrets must learn to depend on, and trust each other, as they stumble through a world of espionage that they were not at all prepared for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fanfiction takes patience, because while Skye/Ward are the pairing- the first part of this fic is them becoming friends first, and opening up to each other.
> 
> I wrote this because I wanted a world where Grant Ward didn't meet Garrett first, and how that would change him.
> 
> Edit: I've gone back and cleaned up the writing a bit. Fresh eyes pointed out a ton of mistakes. Sorry, ladies and gents.

** Everything Must Belong Somewhere **

_Rated: R (language/violence/adult content)_

_Pairing: AU Skye/Ward, Clint/Natasha_

_Warning: This fanfiction takes patience, because while Skye/Ward are the pairing- the first part of this fic is them becoming friends first, and opening up to each other._

Summary:  _When Grant Ward ran away from his Military School to burn down his parent’s home, he didn’t expect to pick up an amateur hacker with a secret along the way. Now two teens with troubled pasts, and painful secrets must learn to depend on, and trust each other, as they stumble through a world of espionage that they were not at all prepared for._

Part 1 - Chapter 1

Hatred tightened Grant Ward’s fingers on the steering wheel until his knuckles were white, and his hands began to cramp. Still, he drove sensibly down the highway, careful to keep his rage from revealing itself to the outside world. To the casual onlooker, he would seem to be a perfectly coifed young, white male from an affluent background, on his way to somewhere or other. To them, he was someone of very little consequence, who wasn’t really to be regarded, or noticed. Why would they bother looking at the license plate of his boring, blue sedan? It blended in with all of the other cars so seamlessly, he drove with the flow of traffic, and kept up the most normal appearance possible. He dismissed his anger for a heart-beat of a second to congratulate himself on the perfect choice for a stolen car. It probably wouldn’t even get noticed as _appropriated_ for a few more hours, considering the hour of night that he had taken it, and the location. A parking garage next to a night club, what better choice could he have made? By the time the drunk got back to his vehicle, it’d be 2 am, just like the two weekends before. By then he’d be far enough away to not have to worry about it.

The only predicament was fuel.

He was close to empty, and had been putting it off for as long as possible. Was he finally enough distance away for him to hit up a gas station, was it playing it safe if he drove just a little bit longer, or would his luck of the night run out, leaving him stranded?

He dampened his drying lips, then glanced at his gaze in the rearview, as if his reflection could answer his dilemma.

No luck. He sucked in a deep, shaky breath, threw on his right turn signal, and pulled into the lane where he could enter the rest stop that he was approaching shortly. If he ran out of gas, he’d get pinched for sure; and besides, it would be nice to stretch his legs. He had been driving for hours in darkness, causing a dull ache in his lower back and a splitting headache from glaring headlights.

He pulled up to a pump between a white minivan and blue SUV, casually exited the vehicle and began pumping his gas. He leaned against the car nonchalantly, keeping his head slightly down, as to not appear like he was looking around, assessing the station carefully. It was a difficult endeavor, and he almost caught himself tilting his head for a better view, then quickly admonished his stupidity. _Maybe Christian was right, and he did need to beat some sense into you._ His silent scold had the desired effect, and when the tank was full, he walked easily inside to pay the bill.

Grant kept his cool, smiled as he paid for his gas, slipped his wallet back into his pocket and started out the door- his mind focused on acting naturally. He was going to show Christian just how weak and stupid he really wasn’t, but to do that, he needed to get to point B without getting arrested.

That was his exact thought when he walked straight into the chest of a State Trooper, took two steps back, and called himself seven kinds of stupid. He was in a _stolen_ car, running away from a Military School that he had been put into for being _expelled_ from all the private ones he attended, and already had slight juvenile record for fighting in school. In short, he was totally fucked.

_Calm down._ Immediately, Ward smiled, “I’m so sorry, Officer. My sister is always telling me to watch where I’m going.”

He was a large, clean shaven white man with steel blue eyes, thin lips and a sour expression. Ward immediately disliked him, but kept his expression pleasant and easy, despite the lack of response from the trooper.

Grant started to pass him, when the man grabbed his arm, and it took all of his will not to turn and deck the officer, but he couldn’t stop himself from tensing up. It was instinctual, impossible for him to control, and he hated the suspiciousness of that kind of response. But terror rendered him in such a state, and it was such a difficult weakness for him to control. His mind fumbled for an excuse, for something, anything to say, but all he could see, all he could think of, was what would happen when his family found out he had stolen a car…

“Why you so nervous, boy?” The state trooper asked gruffly, “and what’s a teenage boy like yourself doing out here all alone?” Grant opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. All he could hear was Christian’s cruel laughter, and it echoed through his useless brain. The trooper’s hand was still heavy and warm on his arm, making a tight fist in Ward’s stomach. “You gonna answer me, or what?”

“Oh hey, Grant, I hope you don’t mind, but I used a few dollars to get some- why hello there, Officer.” The voice was unrecognizable, just a young girl’s and Ward turned to see who possessed it, who knew his name, who was interrupting his impending doom. There, in the dimly lit parking lot, was a skinny girl with crooked Lisa Loeb glasses, dark hair thrown up into a ponytail, strands falling out every-which way, a pair of loose fitting jeans and the ugliest aquamarine sweater he had ever seen in his life. He had never seen someone so awkward looking in all his life, but at that moment, she might as well have been an angel, because the hand on his arm fell to the officer’s side, and he stepped back, putting beautiful space between them. “Is something wrong?”

“Why are you two kids out in the middle of the night?”

“Well, his parents and my parents have this stupid idea that we would be like…great for each other. You know, I help him study, he helps me get popular. Too many 80’s movies, right? So we’re out with his friends- who totally hate me. Which is fine, because they’re a bunch of tools anyway and-”

He sighed impatiently, “short version, kid.”

She opened her mouth to speak, shut it, then opened it again. “I can’t do short versions.”

“Flat tire.” Grant responded curtly.

The State Trooper gave them both a once over, and then he settled on Grant with the most sympathetic of expressions, “I really hope the A is worth it, boy. Now you two get home, before either of you get into any real trouble, okay?”

“Yes.yes.yes.yes.yes.” She said in one hurried breath, and made quick eye contact with Grant. He gave her the slightest of head movements to where his car was parked, and they walked to it very quickly.

They climbed in simultaneously, her dropping a book bag he hadn’t noticed earlier into the back seat before her eyes landed on the exposed wires that he needed to start the car. He saw the trepidation there, the glimmer of fear, and it reminded him so much of the look in Thomas’ eyes when he’d watch their parent’s walk out the door- it was like a knife in the gut, to be looked at in that _way_ , without Christian being the reason. “I’ll bring you right back here in an hour; he should be gone by then. You’ll be safe.”

“No need.” She sighed, eyes moving from the wires to the glove box, then to him. “I just need to hit a place with the internet. So like…a library or something.”

“There are no libraries open in the middle of the- wait, how did you know my name?” How had he forgotten to ask that immediately?

There was a small snicker, before he caught her reaching into her pocket and dropping his wallet in the center console. He felt his jaw set in anger, and moved his eyes directly to the road as they pulled back onto the highway. How did she get that? He didn't even see her in the gas station. “So you’re a thief.”

She motioned to the wires, “oh hi, Pot, have you met Kettle?

He gave her an irritated look, refusing to admit that she was right. “So what’s your name?” He asked, “and don’t tell me Kettle.”

Another laugh, but it almost sounded like a giggle.

“What would you like my name to be?” She asked him with a smile, and for a moment, he thought this little kid was flirting with him. He raised a sardonic brow at her, and her olive skin started flush into a deep, embarrassed red. “What does it matter anyway, what my name is? It’s not like…a defining characteristic. It’s just a word that people put on you, before they even know anything about you. A name is what someone else wants you to be. I think we should be able to like…change our names when we reach a certain age. Don’t you think that would be cool?”

“You talk a lot.”

“Yeah. I’ve been told that before.”

“But you don’t actually answer questions when you talk.” He pointed out, slightly annoyed. “Your name?”

She looked out the window, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw that she was picking at the sleeve of that oversized crocheted sweater. Finally she looked back at him, “it’s Skye.”

“Skye, huh?” He asked, “got a last name?”

“You mean like a family name?” Her retort was bitter, “no. I don’t have one of those.”

The side of his mouth jerked a little, but he kept away the full frown as he sped up the car just a little. “Lucky you.”

“So where did you learn to hotwire a car? Juvie?” She asked, hands reaching to the wires, he swatted her hand away, while trying to maintain focus enough on the road to _not_ crash. “Because they probably also should have told you not to walk into cops when you have a stolen vehicle in the parking lot.”

He glared, “no. Not Juvie.”

She leaned forward in her seat, “so where are you going? Are you going to like… take it to a chop shop? Oh my God, like in _Adventures in Babysitting,_ right? I love that movie. I really thought that Chris and Joe should have hooked up, instead of Dudley Do-Dull, but they never hook up the people they’re supposed to in mo-”

“I’m not a car thief!” He exclaimed crossly, “we’re not going to a chop shop, and I have never seen that movie.

“Well okay, Mr. Cranky-pants.” She sank back down in the seat and folded her arms over his chest, “I was just trying to make conversation. You don’t have to be all grumpy.”

He sucked in a deep breath, looked sideways at her, but said nothing.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, before she spoke up. “You can just pull up on this exit. I’m sure there is a coffee shop, or library, or something with the internet.”

He switched lanes, then took the exit. “What’s with your internet obsession, kid?”

“ _Kid_?” She practically squeaked, “I’m 14!”

“Oh, I thought you were 12. Sorry.” Her eyebrows shot up, as though she had taken the greatest offense, before crossing her arms over her chest, and shaking her head in dismay. She did look young though- she was just a tiny thing, with wide eyes and oversized clothes, like a little girl in her big sister’s clothing. “So why do you need the internet?”

“Why did you steal a car?” She returned in a challenging voice.

For someone _so_ small, how could she be _so_ irritating? “I needed a ride home.”

“Must be nice.”

“You’d be surprised,” he answered, then glanced at her sideways, “you don’t have a home?”

She shrugged, suddenly interested in looking out the window. “Hey, there. It’s a library. Perfect. Pull over! Pull over!”

“It’s almost 1 AM, Skye. The library isn’t open!” He hadn’t meant to yell, really, he hadn’t, but she was frustrating, and he was already worked up about the plan, then the plan getting hijacked by a irksome wisp of a girl, who didn’t know when to be quiet, and apparently had no concept of how the real world worked. “We can’t just walk in.”

“I’m sure I can climb through a window, or something. It’s a library, I really doubt they have top-level security, Grant.” She was already grabbing her bag, and getting out of the car before it had even come to a complete stop. Her feet hit the ground, and she was taking off across the parking lot, almost disappearing in the parking lot.

He knew there was a choice: Let this idiot-child get herself arrested; or repay the favor of keeping her out of trouble. Sighing with deep frustration, Grant started to follow her, breaking into a sprint in order to catch up. By the time he reached her, she was breathing heavily, starting to circle the building, undoubtedly looking for an entry. “Can’t this wait until morning?”

“Go away, Grant.”

“Look, why don’t you just get back in the car-”

She whirled around, and even with just the moon lighting her face, Grant saw the pain and anger glinting in her eyes “why? You don’t want me there, so buzz off, creep. I’ve got stuff I need to do.”

“You’re being unreasonable.” But he was unsure of the words. Comforting people had never been his forte.

She ignored him, and continued looking around the building for a possible point of entry, when she clasped her hands together and jogged up to a window that was ever-so-slightly ajar. She gave a quick look around, while he focused on her. Was she seriously thinking of breaking into a library to use the internet? What the hell was wrong with this girl? “Skye, c’mon. Don’t be an idiot-”

“I’m not an idiot.” She interrupted, “did you learn your people skills in Juvie too?”

“I wasn’t in Juvie.” He replied through clenched teeth.

“I just need something to stand on,” she was looking at the ground, next looked around further before walking about the grounds, desperately in search for something to give her a bit more height.

He followed, trying to reason with her the best he could; “we can just wait until it opens…”

“And then have you get arrested for a stolen vehicle? No thanks.”

“Will you just tell me why you need the internet so badly? Maybe we can think of another option, Skye.’

She made an irritated sound, “I need to contact someone, a friend, a couple of friends, maybe.”

“Maybe?” He prompted, “pretty vague, don’t you think.”

She approached him, “well you’re not sharing your story either,” she poked his chest at the word, ‘you’re,’ and then raised her eyebrows for effect. “So I don’t see why I have to.”

He thought about lying. It kept him quiet for about ten seconds, actually. Why not lie? No one had ever believed the truth anyway, and he was getting tired of telling the story, of being told that he was a delinquent, of being ridiculed;all the while Christian was revered. No one believed his sweet, charming brother of being a sadistic fuck who pitted brother against brother, who got some kind of sick pleasure out of other people’s pain. But something about the look in those defiant brown eyes, and the resolve that she had to do what needed to be done told him that maybe this time the conversation would go differently.

He opened his mouth to speak, then he shut it again; what was the use, really?

“Okay, fine. I’ll be the first to leap. How about that?” She tilted her head to the side, “I don’t have any family. My last name ought to be Ward, since I’m a ward of the state anyway.” She rolled her eyes, “but I met some people, and they’re like me, and they want to help me find a home.”

“Like you, how? Where did you meet them?”

“Like misfits, or whatever. And I met them online.”

_You don’t want me there_. He remembered her words with a wince, and drew his brows together. No family. No friends. Nobody. The girl had nobody. So a girl like that meets some people online, and feels like she’s connected to someone, feels like she belongs. Then said friend turns out to be a child-molester or worse; because that was the way the world worked. The ‘friends’ she mentioned probably only wanted to help her into a life of misery.

_She could end up like me, or like Thomas._

Protectiveness began to stir inside him. She was so _small_. There were a million ways for someone to hurt her, hurt her even worse than she already was. He saw the pain then, beneath the bravado, and the stream-of-consciousness speeches. That annoying prattling on she did wasn’t so obnoxious now that he understood it. She had wanted to be liked, to be accepted, to be understood. He knew that feeling all to well. The precipitous change of his emotions towards her rattled him, he wasn’t much used to feeling anything but anger and fear anymore.

Grant swallowed, “well,” he said slowly, “where are you supposed to meet these…misfit people?”

“Providence, Rhode Island. Don’t you think that’s awesome?” She was suddenly bright and hopeful again, like everything that just transpired between them were droplets of water on the back of a duck. Was this girl for real?

He glanced back at the car, and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “I ran away from Military School. I’m going back home to confront my family about it. But…I can take you to meet your friends first.” Somehow he knew he wasn’t going to regret this offer, it gave him a calmness, a certainty that he had never had before. For once in his whole life, he felt good about something. It was so foreign of an emotion, that he barely recognized it.

She looked unconvinced. “Why?”

He straightened his shoulders, realizing that the truth was going to get him nowhere on that front. “Maybe I’m kind of a misfit too.”

She snorted, “looking like that? Yeah right.” Then her cheeks turned pink again, and she rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know.” Their eyes locked, and a kind of understanding passed between them, as she shifted from one foot to the other, and played with the sleeves of her sweater. She was an adorable little thing, in an ungainly, awkward sort of way; funny how he hadn’t noticed that before. It was in her eyes mostly, which chiefly went unnoticed due to the thick rimmed glasses that initially garnered his attention. Grant wagered that somewhere out there was a dorky little 14-year-old boy who was going to miss the little runaway girl. “But I want to.”

She broke into a warm grin. “Really?”

He found himself, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, giving her a genuine smile back as he nodded. “Really.”

“Well what are you waiting for?” She asked brightly, “let’s go, Pot!”

He rolled his eyes as he followed her back to the car. “Don’t call me that.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nick Fury gives Clint and Natasha a new mission, and our runaways get to know each other a little better.

**_Chapter 2_ **

Grant wondered, not for the first time in the last three hours, what the hell he had been thinking, taking the girl along with him. The question was increasing its frequency as he dumped his duffel bag onto the motel room bed. His _other_ luggage was in the trunk, awaiting use. It bothered him to have it there now, with this tiny force of nature suddenly in his life, ready to expose his plans for Christian at any given moment. What would she think if she opened up that trunk to find the perfect combination of items to burn down a mansion? “I still don’t know how I let you convince me to make this stop.” He let displeasure tint his words. Skye was gingerly placing her backpack on the chair. The seedy, by the hour motel room looked as though it had seen better decades. The walls had peeling blue paint, the floor brown shag carpeting, dusty blinds partially covered an unwashed window, and it smelled of cigarette smoke and strong perfume. It didn’t have much either. A full-size bed with a navy colored comforter, a desk with a phone on it, and a nightstand, there wasn’t even a television. But he guessed watching TV wasn’t the normal M.O. of people who rented out the room.. “Do you even want to sleep on that bed?”

She wasn’t looking up at him, or paying him any attention at all. She was pulling out a rather expensive looking laptop from her bag, placing it on the table, and then rummaging through the rest of the contents, pulling out a CD case, and a pair of headphones. It all looked very costly, and he guessed that she had stolen it, so he made no inquiries into the matter. “I’m not sleeping,” she finally said, “I can sleep in the car. _You_ are sleeping.”

“We wasted money. I could have slept in the car.”

“We used a stolen credit card, Grant.” An impatient sigh followed, and when her eyes landed on him, he could see that spark of irritation. “We already had this argument for an hour; and you know how I won? Because you’re freaking _exhausted._ Now you, to bed.” She pointed to him, then to the mattress, before slipping off her _atrocious_ sweater, revealing a rather loose fitting white shirt with a faded image of a bunch of random looking teenagers, and _The Breakfast Club_ printed on the bottom.

Without the sweater, she looked even _smaller_.

Unwanted images of what those ‘internet friends of hers would do to her invaded his mind. “You’re going to try to talk to those people, aren’t you?” She nodded absently, fingering through the case until she seemed to land on what she wanted. “Just don’t tell them where we are, okay? Or who you’re with?”

She glanced over her shoulder, “why?”

“I just…I’d feel better.” He wanted the advantage of surprise, if they turned out to be as dangerous as he supposed they were, then he could protect her better because they didn’t expect her to have any kind of reinforcement. Some smart-ass voice in the back of his mind reminded him that he was nobody’s hero, that he was a weakling who hurt people. The longer that she was quiet, and not arguing with him, the louder, and harder to ignore, those doubts became. She was turning her computer on, connecting it to the phone line, and it bothered him that he couldn’t even see her face to try to discern what her thoughts could possibly be. Finally, she turned around and looked at him, one hand on her hip, the other pushing up the large glasses that kept sliding down her nose. “Okay.”

He was suspicious. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I’m not going to tell anyone where we are, or lead anyone to us. I promise. I just need to check in and pass one final test, okay? It’s important.”

“What kind of test?”

“It’s a computer thing.” It was obviously a dismissal.

“A computer thing.” He repeated dully, then with a sharp intake of a breath, he hissed. "you….you're a computer hacker?” That explained how she had the fake credit card.

At Military School, his first roommate, and incidentally the first person he beat the crap out of for messing with his stuff, considered himself a hacker. He had been sent to military school after his parents had caught him. He used to mention all kinds of stuff about how if he had been caught by anyone besides his mother it would have been the FBI who would have been busting him, not the local police…

Alarm bells were going off. They were in _enough_ of a mess, they didn’t need to add having the FBI on their trail as an added bonus round of trouble. “Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it.”

In two strides he was at her computer, ready to pull the plug and end her insanity, but she stood in front of it defensively. “Calm. Down. I’ve passed all the really hard ones, without any issue. Trust me, I’m _good_. Not like Myles Lydon good _yet,_ but-”

“Who?”

She smirked, “You’ll know that name soon. He’s an up-and-comer. I'm a bit behind him. Trust me, I’ll catch up. I mean, I don’t like to brag but-“ the smirk turned into a grin, and it brightened her expression, “it’s hard not to.”

He raised a brow, “and what is this test you have to pass?”

“A quick, difficult hack of my choosing. I was thinking that erasing the records of a stolen car, then registering that car to a new identity that I’ll create, and bam, I’ll pass that final test.”

“So you’ll buy us some time, and pass this test.” Despite how impressed he was, he kept his voice neutral. “What is it? Like some kind of hacking club?” He stumbled a little over the absurdity of how it sounded.

“Something like that.” Her hesitation only riled his curiosity further. “It’s almost like a society, really. They’re elite. I _have_ to get in.”

“Why? Why do you want to be part of it so badly? You can find friends anywhere, Skye.”

He watched as her jaw ticked, and he realized that she too was holding back, not telling him everything. It bothered him, but he really had no leg to stand on. He was hiding quite a few secrets from her, after all. “Look, I promise that I won’t get caught; and added bonus, you’ll have a new identity. In case that convo with your family goes south.” There was a suspicion in her eyes, all the while avoiding _his_ question. “It’s just a skimpy one, won’t hold up to much scrutiny, but I can flesh it out with some time.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?” Complete bafflement.

“Why would you create a new identity for me?”

She gave him a look that clearly indicated he was the dumbest person she had _ever_ met in her whole life. “Because we’re friends, duh.”

And, for her, it was that simple. _We’re friends_. It was all she needed to help him, to not question what he was up to, even when she was clearly suspicious. Her offer was coming without a price tag, without manipulation, without a desire to have any kind of power over him. Their earlier argument about him getting sleep, about getting the motel room; it really was about his better interest all along. Sure, she needed to pass this test- but not at his expense. In truth, it was in his favor.

No one, in his _entire_ life, had shown him that kind of generosity before.

He wanted to grab her, to shake her, to tell her that acting like this was going to get her hurt. That one day she would give this beautiful gift of friendship to someone who would abuse it, who would abuse her; and she would be an empty broken shell of who she used to be. That person could be in that club she was joining, _or_ , a soft, insidious voice whispered in his head, _that person to hurt her could be you._

She’d end up like Thomas, or _worse,_ be another Grant Ward; so scared of pain and humiliation, that he was willing to do almost anything to avoid it….

 _No._ The word was cold, hard and irrefutable in his mind. _I am not that person anymore. I didn’t want to hurt Thomas, I didn’t…I don’t care what Christian said._

He must have been soundless, and staring at her too long, because she said in a very small voice. “I mean, at least I thought we were friends?” The misinterpretation of his silence was endearing.

He swallowed, and nodded. “Yes. Yes we’re friends.” He responded in a thick voice, trying to control the emotion in it.

There was that bright smile that lit up her entire face, “cool. Now get some sleep, Jeeves, your driving services aren’t necessary at the moment.” A wink followed, as she sat down in her chair and began making swipes at her keyboard.

XXX

 

There was always the mission.

Should someone have asked to Natasha Romanoff what the most comforting aspect of her life was, and she felt like being honest, that was what she would tell them. No matter the regime, no matter the monetary unit, no matter the day; there was always the mission. Those would never run dry.

If she were sitting, still as a statue, cloaked in the shadows of the dusty, abandoned warehouse that seemed to be a trademark to actual espionage, as well as movie-versions of espionage, her very life in the balance as Agent Barton charmed his way through the sale of nuclear weapons to terrorists, Natasha would be at ease. It was a comfort to be on duty, to know what was expected of her.

Sitting at a dinner table in Clint Barton’s apartment, across from Nick Fury, while they were supposed to be having a friendly meal, however, left her with an uneasy, tight fist in her stomach, and her mouth dry. She sipped her water, kept her face positively neutral, and listened as they discussed old stories about missions and Barton’s love life. She was unsure how to behave.

If this were a con, she’d relax her shoulders, she’d give a laugh, invent a story of her own that was partially ingrained in truth. She’d melt into the scenery, launching into a joke about “this one time at the bar,” because Barton obviously liked his drink, after all, his living room had a full bar, and a pool table. Since the décor of the dining room was casual, with just a plain wood table, a boring old green table cloth, that clashed terribly with the orange curtains, and gray slate floor; she’d wrinkle her shirt a little, and hike up the sleeve of her black sweater on only one arm to appear just as casual. Her attention would also be split between the two of them, so she would lean in and laugh at Barton’s flirtations, making a great deal of eye contact, while subtly seeming submissive to Fury. She’d be careful with both, as the men seemed to have a suspicious nature, and a keen eye. Coming on too strong would have been a death sentence.

However, Barton didn’t deserve that kind of disingenuous behavior from her. He had saved her, in possibly more ways than one, invited her to live in his bachelor pad of a home, be her Supervising Officer, got her a job…. And that list of how she was indebted to him just became longer every single day.

He walked away from the table, returned, tossed her a beer; her hand snapped up and caught it, then she placed it next to the previous one she hadn’t touched. “Ease up, Agent.” Fury told her with a smirk, as Barton handed him his beer. “It’s off time.”

There was never off time.

Only possibility-to-get-killed time.

But she didn’t respond.

The two men before her, the only ones on the planet who knew where she really came from, who knew her back story, couldn’t seem more different. Fury, who radiated menace and authority without even trying, his one eye dark, and foreboding, whether he was smiling or barking orders; and Barton, who was always half-a-sentence from cracking a joke, eyes twinkling with merriment and mischief, smiling like there wasn’t a care in the world, even when the world’s very safety was held in the balance of whatever it was that they were doing.

Where did she fit in this dichotomy of theirs?

It made her uncomfortable. She was used to not belonging, but it was odd to not belong when it was so obvious that Barton felt that she fit right in.

“It’s off-time?” Barton snorted, “you don’t know what that is, Fury. So maybe we should stop with the stories, and you tell us what mission you don’t think we want to go on? I mean, you bought us dinner, so I expect we’re about to get screwed.”

He didn’t really mean to be a misogynist, Natasha thought with mild amusement. It was a weakness in most men though, and even Barton wasn’t immune. In truth misogyny was her best friend, the tool that was always just within reaching distance, even when all else was lost. Being underestimated was the greatest gift of all.

Fury gave him the smallest, smuggest of smiles, with a smidgen of pride, Natasha noted. “We have a small problem with a group of hackers managing to get into our systems. They call themselves The Rising Tide, and for the most part, they’re just hackers interested in getting the truth out there to the public.”

Barton nodded, “whose truths?”

“Not ours, until recently. Someone has hit upon a nerve though, some information about the serum that they used on Steve Rogers, and where that technology went. We are not sure if that is the only information that they have.” He grimaced, “we barely managed to contain it before the news went global, but some conspiracy theorists latched onto it, and it might cause some ripples.”

Natasha’s information on ‘Captain America’ was little, being her low level clearance. Barton glanced over at her, smiled a little and said; “looks like you’re jumping a few levels,” as if reading her mind. He followed it with a wink, but she didn’t take it personally. Clint flirted like she lied- it came like breathing to them. Plus, they were both imperative tools in their line of work. His boyish good looks, coupled with that flirtatious nature disarmed people, as most were more inclined to believe an attractive person with an interest in them. It made her wonder how much of his nature was manufactured for survival versus what came innately.

And it brought up a few painful questions about herself, and her nature that she would rather ignore.

“I’ll give you the details on that later. I’ve already increased your clearance to a level 4.” Fury told her simply.

She just nodded, though it was unexpected. She was still so new to their organizations, and having worked for the KGB, she believed more clearance would never come. She had always wondered what Barton’s clearance level was, but knew better than to ask. Sometimes Barton liked to bend the rules in order to get done what was needed, and she had seen him outright break a few if he knew he wasn’t going to get caught. However, for the most part, he was a loyal Agent, who believed in S.H.I.E.L.D completely.

“Look, we need your hacking skills to infiltrate this little group, and find out how they operate. It’s an easy opp, but it isn’t your usual. It should be done with little to no violence, and we would rather they not know we’re interested in them at all.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant to sound gruff and demanding with every word, or if she just couldn’t control that tone anymore.

“Is this only because of my computer science skills, or is there more to it?”

“There’s more. We have reason to believe that someone you knew in the KGB has joined their ranks, Maxim Karp.”

Silence lingered in the room, but she did not shrink under Fury’s relentless gaze. He knew who she was when he brought her in, the sins that she had committed, she wasn’t about to get all sensitive about it. T was his choice to bring her in, the good, and the bad. She couldn’t, however, bring herself to look at Barton. “I’m surprised he’s alive.” She finally told them, “he didn’t seem cut out for the KGB. I didn’t think he’d last a year.” _But you brought him in anyway_. _You brought him in to die._

“His self-preservation skills improved. Maybe it happened after he hit puberty.”

Fury’s judgment appeared to bounce off of her, but in truth, the words resonated deeply. Max had been 12 when she brought him in; she had been 18 at the time. She sacrificed that child to orders, just like she had once been sacrificed.

“His aim has also improved. He’s crossed off 3 people from The Index. Good people.” Barton hissed in a breath, and Natasha looked over to see his eyes widening ever-so-slightly. “the index,” Furty told her chillingly, “is the short list of people who seem to have…gifts. Like Steve Rogers.”

“Speed, strength, and agility beyond the norm?” She questioned, not at all surprised. She was aware of the experimentation on people, though it looked like Fury thought this would be news for her.

“Among other things,” Barton chimed in. “So what is she supposed to do? Infiltrate using her connection to this guy, find out how he is getting the information that S.H.I.E.L.D. has?”

Fury nodded. Barton yawned, obviously bored. “Not sure how I’ll be of help.”

“You’re her S.O. so be an S.O.” Fury responded, undeniably annoyed. “We need an elite hacker to do this, and Romanoff, you’re one of our best, and one of our most discreet.”

It was a trust issue, and he didn’t mind her knowing it. _Well, okay. What did I expect?_ She glanced at Barton, who gave a quick, but slightly irritated nod. “Oh well, I guess I could use some _down time_.” He mocked with an easy laugh. He glanced downward as his dog, the one-eyed Golden Retriever mix, Lucky trotted in with his head held high. He sat down next to Clint, how put a large hand on the dog’s head and ruffled his fur. “Looks like we’re back up, Luckster.”

Natasha felt a genuine smile touch her lips, because while the mission brought up a painful past, it was, at least, a mission.

XXX

 

 **FellwocksGhost:** **Are you sure you’re safe? I really wish you would have let me just send you a plane ticket, instead of this hitchhiking across the country stuff.**

**PeskyDragon It was my choice. And yes. I’m safe. Chill.**

She looked down at the messages between she and Miles Lydon, then glanced back at the sleeping body on the bed- Correction, the unbelievably hot teenage boy whom _she_ was on a crazy adventure with! It was straight out of some movie, and so incredibly dangerous and _exciting_. Her typing fingers itched to tell Miles all about it, but she remembered her promise to Grant, and held back.

**FellwocksGhost You tell me to chill, when my favorite protégé decides to hitchhike to Rhode Island to meet a hacker that isn’t me?**

**PeskyDragon Give me a year, and I’ll pass you up.**

**FellwocksGhost Keep dreaming!**

Skye smirked, leaned back into her chair, and folded her arms across her chest. Mile Lydon, a kid she had never met in person, found her on a secure message-board that one had to hack their way into. She was sure that Miles wasn’t his real name, and she never did tell him hers. Still, it was the first time that she had ever had a lasting connection with anyone, and he had taken her in as an apprentice of sorts. She caught on quick, faster than she thought he anticipated, and he had introduced her to a contact who could help with her search for her family. There was one condition though, that she paid this favor forward by joining and aiding their little group.

So she forged herself a new identity to prove herself to the “hacktivists.” That was when Mary Sue Poots vanished completely, and Skye was born. It seemed fitting to take her name from the handle she used online, it was really the only world she belonged in anyway. There were variations, Skye Baskin, Skye Bueller, Skye Anderson, Skye Baker…. She had numerous fake IDs, with assorted ages, all with subtle differences in appearances. When she was 11, she stayed a few weeks with a family that had a James Bond obsession, not that she’d admit any secretive skills she had were born from being a movie junkie, she doubted it would impress anyone.

It certainly wouldn’t make Mr. TooSexyForMyMilitarySchool take notice- and she wasn’t going to lie, making him notice would be high on her priority list. That was if she ever had a shot in hell, which she didn’t. Her eyes rested on his serene countenance; a chiseled jaw line, smooth skin and the most perfect cheekbones that she had ever seen in her entire life. He worked out, enough that she could see muscle in his arms, and his body was lean. All that sexy wrapped up in a troubled package with an air of tragedy. What would he see in a dorky, klutzy kid that no one ever wanted? It was hopeless.

Skye turned back to her completed task, scanned the computer screen, to make sure that her work was flawless, shut down the program, and saved it to a disk. She’d print out the new registration and Grant’s new license in the office. She had the lamination needed for it, but not the heat seal. However, it would not be that difficult to either get one, or use someone else’s.

**PeskyDragon Go on, ask the Merry Men, and they’ll side with me for sure. **

A noise distracted her from typing, and she glanced over as Grant tossed sideways on the bed, his earlier peaceful expression replaced by a furrowed brow, and a twist of his lips. She swallowed hard, and watched him, knowing exactly how creepy that made her, but not caring because concern always overcame pride. Hell, most things overcame pride in her case. Immediately she stood, walking quietly over to the restless boy.

Skye herself was no stranger to nightmares, both personally, and through observation. A family she had spent a month with had another foster kid, a little boy named Frank. He had them nightly, and for the few weeks that the family had wanted her, she managed to soothe his troubled sleep. However, soon she was sent back into the system, and never did see that kid again. The guy in front of her now though, well, he was a far cry from a 7-year-old-boy. Still, a nightmare was a nightmare, and her efforts before were worth trying. Leaning over him, she whispered softly; “shhhhhh, it’s okay. You’re safe here. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

It sounded sillier, saying it to Grant, who easily dwarfed her. Yet his face smoothed out, becoming tranquil and peaceful again.

It didn’t answer the nagging question of what caused the nightmares though. Or any of the questions that surrounded her new companion, really. Why was he honestly running away? What was so important, or terrible, that he felt the only solution was to steal a car? It wasn’t like he was from her neighborhood, where a lot of people felt stealing a car was some kind of right-of-passage. He looked and spoke like a kid from upper class suburbia. Not that they didn’t have skeletons in her closet, she had stayed with a few upper crest families to know better- but their solutions weren’t normally jacking a car for a trip home.

That meant something was drastically wrong in his world, and she certainly was curious.

Skye turned back to the computer, where another mystery blossomed before her. The contact who could find her family- neither she nor Miles knew who he was, but the man, or woman, had access to all kinds of government files that they couldn’t seem to hack into. How? And why would he want to help a nobody like her?

All she knew was that he could hold the answers to questions that she had silently asked her entire life.

For the next few hours she chatted idly with Miles, contacted a few other cyber friends, and researched the area to map out some places that they could stop for food, showered, changed into her grey sweatpants and _Pretty in Pink_ t-shirt, then washed some of their clothes in the shower, hanging them to dry. She felt rather accomplished as she began to put away her computer, and pack up their things to depart. As she sat down her oversized backpack, Skye glanced back at Grant, who was sitting up and staring at her. She hadn’t heard him wake, and gave him a half-hearted hello, still feeling awkward about the nightmare. Something told her that he wouldn’t have wanted her to witness any of that. “Anything exciting happen while I was out cold?”

She gave him a mischievous smile, “your name went from Grant Ward to Gilbert Potts.”

“Gilbert Potts?” He scowled, “and in other news, I really hate you.’

Unable to contain it, she burst into giggles, “Just kidding. It’s Cameron Pentola.”

“Pentola is just Italian for a pot.”

“How did you _know_ that?” She demanded incredulously.

He shrugged, laced his fingers behind his head and laid back down on the bed. “The folks don’t tolerate stupidity, and they always sent us to the best schools.” Bitterness flavored his voice, despite the efforts he seemed to take in hiding it. “I speak some French and Spanish too. I’m good at languages actually.”

Pretty and smart. She was so doomed. “How about Chinese?” He shook his head, “Oh, because my new ID is Skye Shuǐhú.”

“If that means kettle, I’m going to scream.”

Skye just smiled, maybe she couldn’t drive him crazy with wanting her- but that didn’t mean she couldn’t drive him crazy in other ways. After all, it was only fair.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very long chapter (sorry, folks); in which Natasha and Clint start gathering intel on their mission, Grant takes a trip down memory lane, and Skye learns that she might be in some trouble, in more ways than one.

Romanoff was focused on her task at hand, fingers moving a mile-a-minute on the keyboard in front of her, stationed at the desk in her bedroom, previously the guest room. Clint watched her carefully as she worked, laying with his back against the headboard of her bed, a few manila folders of information for their mission next to him on the bed, Lucky asleep peacefully at his feet.

The room was furnished as it had been before her arrival, a full-sized oak bed with a warm brown comforter, tan sheets, and matching pillows. The desk, dresser, door, and sliding closet door were all oak too. The carpeting was off-white, as were the walls. There was a mirror on the wall, but no other adornment, whatsoever. In the history of interior design, there probably wasn’t a single room that matched just how boring it looked.

When he moved in, that was what it had looked like, furniture and all. He left it. Decorating was not his thing, and he didn’t spend any time in that particular room before Romanoff showed up in his life. The rest of the apartment, however, had his prints all over it. Sure, none of it matched, and if any kind of professional came in to take a gander, they’d probably go blind, but it was obviously _his_ apartment. There were pictures of loved ones on the wall, items that he had accumulated over the years, some with sentimental value. For instance, he had the ugly blue vase, with deformed looking blue birds, which his old Supervising Officer’s five-year-old daughter made him. It sat on the stand next to his bed, filled with fake flowers stuffed inside. While other things just looked cool, like the flashing neon Budweiser sign above his bar. It was a _home_ , and after a long time undercover, or a particularly trying mission, he could decompress and remember who he was.

So it bothered him that Romanoff’s touch was nowhere to be found. All of her things were neatly hidden away in the drawers, and in the closet. There wasn’t a picture, a knick-knack, nor anything personal anywhere. It was like she wasn’t there at all, really, like she didn’t exist.

And sure, that probably kept her alive so far, but he’d seen what kind of fate living in that darkness led to, and it wasn’t pretty. Sometime he noted that glint of madness in Fury’s eyes, but never enough for real alarm. Yet, anyway.

But in Romanoff? Well, she seemed to treat it like it was the only thing in the world that she could trust. She was playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette, and there were merely so many times a person came out of that still breathing. She needed a tether, something that would keep her from slipping into the lunacy that threatened to swallow people like them whole. He was lucky; he had people in his life, maybe not family, but friends at least. Most of them were agents. It was easier with them, because he didn’t have to lie as much; but he kept a few people that weren’t. People who could keep him grounded.

She didn’t seem to want any friends. She regarded everyone with cool detachment, and avoided even the most benign questions. He had asked her what her favorite color was once, and she skirted around the question like it was some kind of state secret. Pulling teeth would have been easier.

Barton picked up one of the folders, and shuffled some papers to make it sound like he was working. He had already read over it though. Maxim was a whiz with computer science, brought into the KGB, and trained as both a hacker and an assassin. He vanished, as spies often do, only to recently resurface as Plague, an elite hacker in The Rising Tide. How they achieved the intel on Plague was redacted, and the assassination of three people out of the index was only alleged. He contacted them, then shortly after their bodies were found.

No reason was specified.

“How are you doing over there?” Clint asked.

“Fine.”

He swung his legs onto the floor, and sat up. “Just…fine?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

He sighed. “Have you found anything? And please, use many words.” Because, really, the only time he could catch her running at the mouth was detailing missions.

No answer. Even her typing was silent. Then finally her fingers stopped, and she shrugged. “I’m just trying to find him right now, which is a lot like finding a needle in a haystack. I hacked my way into one of their message boards- and honestly, this is less like an organized group, and more like a bunch of people just doing whatever they want and sharing information. There are some allusions to a more secure network that they use, but nothing specific.”

“Sounds annoying.”

“It is.” She wrinkled her brow, “I think I’m looking at this wrong.”

“What do you mean?” He stood up and peered over her shoulder at the screen in front of her. It looked like a regular message board to him, nothing special, but then he wasn’t the one who had to jump through cyber hoops to get inside.

“I’m looking at what is here. But….I should be looking at what isn’t.”

“What isn’t?”

She nodded, “this is entry level- it’s where you start.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her beautiful face still as stone. Natasha was one of the world’s greatest beauties; she'd probably have made Helen of Troy look like an ordinary, average girl. She was a work of art, sculpted perfectly as though she were made of marble. Nick Fury seemed to believe she actually was, and it kept him from trusting her entirely. Most people thought it was her ex-KGB status, but in reality, Fury didn’t trust a soul whom he didn’t think had one. Clint knew better. He knew she was flesh and bone, and that beneath the cool exterior, there was a real human in there. He wouldn’t have spared her otherwise, wouldn’t have brought her in and taken her into his life.

_“You sure about this one, Barton? The cynic in me- which is most of me if you ask anyone who knows me- thinks you might be thinking with the wrong head.” The Director cocked a brow, and shook his head, “we can’t afford a problem right now.”_

_“Can we ever?” Was Clint’s quick rebuttal, “and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think she was hot, sir. I mean, look at her, but you know me, you know my track record.”_

_“Are you trying to say you’ve killed hotter?” He mused, entertained by his own crassness as he usually was. Clint didn’t really like to ruminate on the people he had to cross off, and so didn’t smile at the joke. “I owe you one, for that thing.” That they never talked about, “well,” he thought about it, “I owe you two. So sure, take her in. But she’s your responsibility, Barton. You remember that. But you need to really think about_ why _you’re bringing her in.”_

That day felt like yesterday sometimes, and at other times it felt like lifetimes ago. In reality, it was almost a year, and while most people would think that the little he knew about her qualified her as a stranger; Clint was wise enough to realize that he knew more than anyone else did, and he was about the only person she really regarded as a friend.

Which made him fiercely protective of her, though ironically, out of the two of them, she was the more lethal, and he knew it.

He realized that she was waiting for him to connect the dots, and that meant he had to concentrate on those dots, and stop his random little trip down memory lane. Leave it to her to act like the damn S.O. She was always doing that, and it drove him nuts. He gave her an eye roll, “fine. So if its entry level, then that means whoever you are looking for probably hasn’t posted there in a while. They moved up in the ranks, so to speak. Do they have ranks?”

“Doesn’t look like it. It’s all chaos really,” she glanced at him with mischief, “can we print this out and give it to Hand?”

He gave her a conspiratorial smile, almost honored to be on the receiving end of one of her genuinely more human-than-spy moments. Victoria Hand was the most organized, efficient, protocol-driven agent to have ever walked the halls of The Hub. Clint liked her, even if she was a big stick in the mud. “Absolutely. It would give her nightmares for weeks.”

She turned back to the screen, and her stoic silence resumed, clearly indicating that he was of little use at that particular moment. “I’m going to get make a sandwich. You want?” Like he was trained for it, Lucky jumped off the bed at the word sandwich and trotted happily over to him.

“I’ll have what he’s having.”

“Two jokes in one day, Romanoff? Somebody might actually think you like me.”

For a split second he thought he saw a smile, but it was probably just a shadow.

XXX

 

_The doctor eyed Grant with a shrewd, calculated glance that already indicated his mind was made up. Hopelessness seized Grant, as he stared back into the cold, blue eyes. He was a tall, skinny man with a wiry brown mustache under a long thin nose, and over practically non-existent lips. Grant was sure that he had seen him before, but couldn’t place where._

_The room was white and barren around him, the table cold beneath his fingertips, the seat hard and unforgiving against his sore, bruised back. He had taken their psyche exams, answered all of their questions, and yet no one had given him a single answer, not in the entire 4 hours that he had been in the little room._

_The doctor walked across the room, back again, then sat down. He looked at Grant with an expression that left Grant wondering if he was somehow channeling his mother. It was a withering, contemptuous gaze meant to shrink him, to make him feel like nothing. He wanted to tell the man that it was too late, he wasn’t informing him of anything that Grant wasn’t already entirely too aware of._

_“So why did you push your brother down the well?”_

_Grant’s breath caught in his throat, “Christian made me.”_

_“Both of your brothers claim that is a lie, Grant.” His name was poison on that tongue, harsh and cruel. It wasn’t the first time that Grant hated his own name. “Why would Thomas lie?”_

_Why would Thomas lie? Grant repeated the question in his own mind, and searched for an answer. “Because he’s afraid of Christian too.” Grant suggested. It wasn’t a fact though, Grant wasn’t entirely sure how Thomas felt about Christian, or anything for that matter. They weren’t exactly close. Their mother, and Christian, made sure of that._

_“Your parents believe Christian.”_

_“My parents hate me.”_

_“That simply isn’t true, Grant.” The doctor replied tightly, and with each use of his name, Granted reviled it more. “If they hated you, then you would be facing police, not a doctor. Your parents want to help you. They want you to get better.” He smiled, and Grant cringed inwardly, as it tainted the man’s already troubling features. “But to get better, you have to stop lying, Grant, not to me, but to yourself. Can you do that?”_

_Grant’s gaze fell to the table, “may I please have some water?”_

_“In a moment.” The doctor responded._

_It was the third time he had been refused water. He was beginning to wonder what kind of institution this was. When his father said he was getting him psychiatric help, Grant thought he would be going to the hospital, not some office-building that was planted in the middle of nowhere. No one had even told him what it was called._

_The ride there had been silent, just he and his father, because his mother couldn’t stand to look at him any longer. She ranted about her disgust for him, how cowardly it was for him to hurt poor, sweet Thomas who wouldn’t hurt a fly. So he raged at her, temper flaring, screaming that she was the monster, that she had hurt him. She feigned innocence, said that she had never touched him, asked him if he was crazy._

_But he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t. Why did they all keep saying that he was?_

_That was the last thing he remembered before waking up in the backseat of his father’s BMW, who told him their destination but said nothing more, who wore that permanently worried expression that wrinkled his face too soon, and exposed his weakness to the world._

_Grant wasn’t sure who he loathed more really, his mother for her sadism, or his father for his feebleness._

_His father allowed to large men to escort him away from the vehicle when they arrived. He didn’t even say goodbye._

_“Why don’t you tell me how you feel about Thomas, Grant?” The doctor urged._

_Grant shrugged, “he’s my brother, and I love him.”_

_“You don’t resent him?” The doctor prodded gently, voice trying to take a softer tone, but failing in warmth. “Don’t you feel as though he is loved more than you?”_

_Grant looked away, his eyes meeting the clean colourless tile of the floor. There were no scuff marks there, no stains, it was as pristine as the white walls. He wasn’t sure how to answer the doctor, he wasn’t even confident about how he really felt. Sure, there was resentment. Thomas would never feel the sharp spiked heel of their mother’s shoe on the top of his foot, the loneliness, hunger and thirst of being locked in a dark, terrifying closet for days, or the thorny, hateful words that sometime hurt more than the physical blows, and Grant understood how unfair all of that was. In the end, none of that was Thomas’ fault- he was just a sweet, innocent kid. “No.” Grant finally answered, tearing his gaze from the floor, back to the even colder, and more sterile blue eyes. “It’s mother’s fault, not Thomas’. It’s not even Christian’s fault. It’s hers. She’s a monster.”_

_“Your mother,” The doctor scoffed, “is more worried about you than anyone else in your family. She’s already called four times to ask when she can visit. She only put you here to protect her other children, Grant.”_

_“Why are you even asking me questions, when you’re not going to believe any of my answers?” Grant burst out, unable to hold his temper. He stood up, hands flat on the table before him, leaning forward into the doctor’s face. “You’ve already made up your mind, so why bother?!”_

_He was completely unperturbed by the outburst, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that Grant was just a weak 11-year-old kid. He was nothing. No one. Why would this doctor be remotely afraid of him?_

_“I’ll leave you with your thoughts, Grant.” He said coolly as he stood, “perhaps when I return you’ll be ready with the truth.”_

_Grant folded his arms over his chest and sat back down in his chair, but gently, his back still smarting from his mother’s fury over Thomas’ time in the well. “And the water?” Grant asked, already knowing the answer._

 

_The doctor said nothing._

_It was always just one hell to the next._

Grant inhaled deeply through his nostrils, feeling them flare with anger. Nevertheless, he kept his cool enough to blend in with traffic, not stick out and get them pulled over. He kept playing that one memory in his head. Turning it over, examining it, trying to keep every little detail straight. It was his life-line- the only thing in his head that wasn’t clouded with fog, that wasn’t overwritten by the script fed to him by his brother, his mother, his father, that awful doctor…

And it was the doctor who brought it all back, who sent him on the run, who struck the match leading him on this journey. He probably would have buried that memory over time, let it get stripped away, and hollowed out like the rest of his thoughts; if it hadn’t been for the picture on the Quarter Master’s wall. The first face that had caught Grant’s eye was his mother’s- the aristocratic nose, high, sharp cheekbones, large steely-grey eyes and heart-shaped mouth. The next face was his father’s, but he had hardly recognized him. In the picture there were no deep-set worry lines, no furrowed brow. He looked younger, and happy. Grant didn’t think he had ever seen his father smile like he was in the photo. It spread his lips even thinner, his nose even wider.

 His eyes lingered there, as he saw vestiges of himself in their faces. He had his mother’s features- the sleek, paleness of his skin, his high cheekbones, the shape of his eyes, nose, and lips were all hers. Only his jaw line was different from hers, clearly being a Ward trait, as was his coloring and build. His hair so dark it looked black most of the time, and eyes almost opaque enough that the pupil was lost in them. The height, and the shoulders were clearly from his father as well, and now that he had shed his baby fat in favor of lean muscle from constant exercise; the mirror image was complete.

And he hated it. Hated how much he looked like them.

His loathing almost made him miss the face just past the quarter-master’s.

It was the doctor. And that wounded memory of an 11-year-old kid, a 6-year-old memory came racing to the surface of his mind; and he grabbed at it like a life-line.

His heart had frozen in his chest as his hand snaked out and pulled the picture down into his grasp. His jaw slacked, and eyes turned into silver-dollars. They had known him. His parents had known that damn doctor all along. It all made perfect, twisted, terrible sense.

Grant knew right then that it had all been a set up, that the doctor had been allied with his mother the entire time. He hadn’t been trying to help, not ever, and the medication, the thoughts, and lies that the doctor had spoon fed him for the six months he was in the asylum had been at her orders. Those hideous whispers of hers, of Christian’s, of the damn doctor’s, twisting his thoughts- they had been lies. All lies. Did he have any real thoughts of his own?

And if he hadn’t seen this picture, would he have somehow lost himself completely? Would he ever have realized that he _wasn’t_ crazy?

They had to pay for what they had done. It was the only way he’d ever be rid of the sick hate inside him, the rage that was never quenched. He had to burn it out. For the last six years he had felt it like a disease in his system. He tried to sweat it out in exercise, perfecting his body so that he could _fight back_. That only seemed to kindle that fire. Soon he was getting kicked out of boarding schools for fighting, and people noted him as a “problem child.” No one believed his stories. He was deemed a liar, put on more medications, drugged until he was a damned zombie. The Military School had been a last resort- a final stop before more drastic, permanent measures could be taken to “handle” him.

The dark thoughts tightened in his stomach, clenched his jaw, squeezed his fists on the steering wheel. His ability to deter them, to focus on something else, had gone dormant when Skye had fallen asleep in the passenger seat beside him. Her ceaseless movie chatter, and endless pleading to stop anywhere to stretch their legs provided a fantastic distraction. The ride started out pleasant even, his thoughts hopeful. Grant had felt well-rested, more so than he ever remembered being.

Part of him wondered if that peace had something to with the kid beside him, but he tossed that thought aside, replacing it with the luggage in his trunk. The peace he had felt was rooted in the justice he planned to mete out, not some internet junkie.

Still, he glanced at her all curled up on the seat she had laid back, cuddled up around her ugly sweater that she had bunched up as a makeshift pillow, hair spread out over her shoulders and seat; her presence was a positive one, and he had to admit that…begrudgingly. She was constantly upbeat; nothing seemed to phase her whatsoever, and her excitement over this “adventure,” as she kept calling it, was almost infectious. There were times that he had to fight to fight off a smile, because really, her exuberance needed no encouragement.

She stirred a bit, rousing from her slumber- and immediately wiped her mouth to check for drool. At that, he smirked and offered a sarcastic, “morning, Sunshine.”

“Mmmmm,” it was a word, but inaudible. She reached her arms out, and stretched, making a relaxed, yawning sound as she did. Immediately she reached for her glasses in the center console, and slid them on her face, then for the bottle of water in the cup holder and took a swig, before returning it to its proper place. “How long was I out?”

“A while.” He replied vaguely.

She arched a brow, then looked at the clock. “4 hours, huh?” She made a face, “did you just sit here in silence the whole time? Why isn’t the radio on?”

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he replied simply.

“No worries there, I could sleep through an earthquake. I mean, have you ever been to an orphanage?” She asked with a chuckle, "good-luck luck sleeping in a building full of ornery kids with tons of emotional baggage. Let me tell you.”

She said it so casually, but then he guessed, for her, it was pretty normal.

“What kind of music do you listen to?” She asked, adjusting the back of her seat upwards, and leaning back into it, as she pulled her seatbelt over her chest and clicked it on. “Rap? Rock? Punk? Jazz-“

“I don’t,” he interrupted.

Her eyebrows flew up, “You don’t listen to music? What are you? The T-1000?”

He glared, then returned his gaze to the road as he noted traffic up ahead. It looked like a grid-lock, which he wasn’t too thrilled about. Sighing, he slowed the car to wait in line with all the others. “What kind do you listen to?”

“Everything.” She responded in a chipper voice. “Life is about variety.”

Of course she did. Of course it was. Her optimism would have been exasperating, if he hadn’t so desperately needed it right then. His back was still stiff from his reverie, and he felt the weight of it in his taut muscles.

She leaned forward and turned the radio on, only to receive static. After flipping through a few more fuzzy stations, she wrinkled her nose. “Hm.” Then, a smile appeared as her fingers touched the end of the cassette hanging out of the player. “Looks like a mixed tape. Man, I love surprises. Don’t you?”

“No.” He said shortly.

She pressed the cassette in anyway, and gave him the cheekiest smile he had ever seen.

The music began to play, and though he didn’t recognize the song, Skye seemed to, as her face lit up with excitement. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to vibrate off this plane of existence.” He cautioned.

Her response was to turn it up so that she couldn’t hear him, and then to _shout_ , not sing, along with the words.

_well, I know I'm gonna be_

_I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you_

_And if I haver, hey, I know I'm gonna be_

_I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you_

_But I would walk five hundred miles_

_And I would walk five hundred more_

_Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles_

_To fall down at your door”_

And when she got to a part where there were no longer intelligible words, just “dadada’s”, she put more effort into it than any other part of the song, so he heaved a substantial sigh, and shook his head.

Secretly though, he enjoyed it a little. It was a hell of a lot better than being alone in his own head, anyway.

XXX

“I think I might have something.” She said as he returned with her two turkey sandwiches, his ham sandwich and a salivating one-eyed bottomless pit, that other people seemed to believe was just a normal dog. Lucky already ate a handful of ham, that Clint had accidentally dropped, all of his dog food, and a sandwich; yet he still looked at the food on Clint’s plate as though he had never been nourished a day in his life. It had been hours; it was their second helping of sandwiches, and he was beginning to think that Romanoff might want something other than cold cuts eventually.

Who was he kidding? She was so focused on the mission that he probably could have fed her Lucky’s food, and she wouldn’t have even noticed. For the last four hours, she had been staring at that screen, without a break. She didn’t even go to the bathroom- the woman was a machine.

He put the plate beside the computer and leaned over Romanoff’s shoulder, “so what is it?”

“Okay, so the first person that Maxim supposed crossed off was a hacker, said it in the file.”

“Uh-huh. What did they call him? A technopath, or whatever?”

She nodded, “yeah, yeah. And here he is, JukeboxBeliever.”

“These names are weird.”

She ignored him, “now, the last person he was talking to before he disappeared was this one, Plague. See?” she pointed with the cursor, then started scrolling, “look, no more Jukebox Believer- but Plague resurfaces here.”

“Don’t people wonder why he comes back, but the other one doesn’t?” Clint narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

Romanoff nodded, “they did, and Plague warns them about SHIELD. He killed JukeBox, he’s telling these people that SHIELD did it, and these sheep are listening.” She leaned back in her chair; arms crossed over her chest. “I tracked all his posts- there are two that he seems the most interested in, and only one who no longer post on the message board. The first is FellwocksGhost. He and Plague talk a lot about conspiracies, like most of this board. It’s all pretty standard, except that Plague hints at having more information than most people. Now, from what I can tell Ghost’s the better hacker, because he actually mentioned tracing Plague. I did too, grant you; he's in Providence, Rhode Island, by the way.”

“That’s not how you want to go about this, is it?”

She gave him an uncertain look, as though she was proud of him for knowing what she wanted, but wary of it too. However the emotion was so fleetingly present there, that most wouldn’t have even caught it. “But we should have Fury send someone to check his place out at least, try and secretly gather some intel.”

“You want to use the hackers he’s interested in as bait, don’t you?” At her nod, he sucked in a breath. “So we bring them in, cut a deal to give them immunity for whatever it is illegal that they’ve done, and then you have them get the information from Maxim.” He had to admit, it was the better plan, and it was standard, so he knew the red tape would be minimal. Plus, if she had gone to Maxim personally, he might have suspected something, using a third party made sense. “So we find these other two.”

“Right. Small catch. I can’t trace Ghost. He’s good.”

“As in better than you?” Clint challenged.

She scowled, “he just knows a trick I don’t. I’ll figure it out.”

Clint shot her a wink.

“He is popular on the board though, and I think he might be someone who spots other talent, because if you look here,” she points, “he’s talking to PeskyDragon, who is the second p-o-a. They chat a bit, then Dragon disappears. He does return, and answers a post to Plague, and then gone again. Look, read from the first, to the last and see what you think.”

Clint read over her shoulder; she had condensed the conversations into a document.

**PeskyDragon: You call this a secret? I call it open season for hackers. **

**FellwocksGhost: Chill. Information is free for all mankind, if we lock it away, we’re no better than the tyrants maintaining our ignorance. **

**Peskyragon: That might be true, but jail time is the ultimate buzzkill for a freedom fighter. **

**FellwocksGhost Is that what you are?**

**PeskyDragon: I’m whatever I need to be to get the answers I want**

**FellwocksGhost Sounds too selfish for the The Rising Tide.**

**PeskyDragon: Everyone starts somewhere. **

**FellwocksGhost: I can’t find you, are you sure you’re a dragon, and not a ghost?**

**PeskyDragon: I breathe fire, and burned my bridges. I didn’t want to be followed. But I can build new ones, just not here. **

**FellwocksGhost: Where then?**

**PeskyDragon: The truth is a virus, and I’m looking to catch it. I’ll be trying on hats, like mad, tomorrow. Think I’ll catch what I want?**

**FellwocksGhost: I like your style, so count on it. **

“So that’s where Dragon first comes into play,” Natasha sounded annoyed, and he could see why. It was like they were talking in riddles, and from the looks of things, she was no closer to figuring out the clues in the posts. “That was about six months ago. Last month, this shows up. And keep in mind, Plague hasn’t shown up since then either.”

**Plague: The truth isn’t a virus, it’s a plague- and I’m here to infect the masses. You want answers, I have them in spades. All you need to do is play the game. **

**PeskyDragon I play to win, and you do too. I’m looking for a hat trick to finish the game. FG says you’re mean with a stick. **

**Plague: Pass the puck to me, and you can’t lose. **

“I don’t get it.”

“That makes two of us.” She replied with mild irritation. “How can they be talking in code if this is their solitary means of communication? And if it isn’t their lone way of communicating, what is? If they had another way of communicating, why come back to this particular board that Dragon clearly knows can be watched by anyone with a few hacking tricks?”

All very good questions, none of which he had answers for. He reread the conversation three more times, then shook his head in disbelief. “No way.”

“What?”

He ran a hand through his loose hair, then stepped back. “That line, The truth is a virus? I’ve heard it before.”

“Where?” She asked, getting to her feet. “Barton?”

“A movie.” He told her doubtfully, “It’s starring Christian Slater, he plays this guy who hijacks a radio station and outs his school for being corrupt. Cool flic, actually. That kind of movie would appeal to these guys too, I think, so it might not be a coincidence.” He tilted his head to the side, and squinted thoughtfully. “Not sure what that could mean though.”

She was quiet for a moment, then arched a brow at him. “A radio station, huh?”

He nodded.

“Well there just happens to be a very popular radio dj they call the Mad Hatter. He started out local, in Connecticut, but now he’s played nationally. He’s very anti-government.”

“I never figured you for a radio kind of girl.”

She shrugged, “we find the show from that day, and I bet we find the clue into figuring out his next target.”

Clint nodded, “can’t you just trace that Dragon guy?”

She shook her head, “I think Ghost covered his tracks too, he seems to be the best out of all of them- I can work on that though, while you let Fury in on what is going on, then research the Hatter’s show.”

He could tell that she was intent on cracking Ghost’s identity, like it was a pride thing. Or maybe she was avoiding facing Maxim, the kid she brought in, who eventually became a killer. She didn’t talk about it, but he knew it had to bother her on some level- because despite her efforts to prove otherwise, she was still a human being.

Even if he was the only she let see that.

XXX

 

Convincing Grant to stop for food had been 1000 times easier than going to the motel to sleep had been- but Skye had lived with enough teenage boys to know that putting away food was the very first thing on their priority list.

She thanked her lucky stars that the internet café that she had chosen in the motel had burgers, because that had been the final selling point to get Grant to veer off the blocked highway, and onto the exit to a small suburban town called Ravensport. They were in Connecticut, closer to Massachusetts, than Rhode Island, which made her wonder about her driver’s past.

And why he was willing to go out of his way to take her all the way to her destination.

She looked up from the screen, to see him standing in line. He blended in with the crowd, despite being the best looking out of all of them. It was good that he seemed to fit in, because sticking out would have been a big problem for them.

Skye checked her inbox, and smiled. There was a message from the contact.

**Plague I’ve received some information that I’m not comfortable giving you electronically. There are eyes everywhere. Let me know when you’re in town, so we can meet up. You know how to give me the destination. I check daily. **

So he had found something already, and hopefully it was more than the dead ends that she had reached by hacking adoption networks; all of which had no record of her whatsoever.

And she still didn’t understand how that was possible. There had to be _some_ record. She wasn’t a ghost, or a figment of someone’s imagination. Somewhere out there she had a family, a mother who she inherited her eyes from, a dad who laughed just like she did. She had to belong to someone, somewhere, at some time…

She clicked on her next email, from a group called the MerryMen. They weren’t actually part of The Rising Tide, but a lot of the community there were fans of their work. They had been the first people she contacted when coming up dry in her own searches for her parents, because they ran a site that helped people track their backgrounds, and ancestry in an attempt to show how connected everyone truly was. Anyone could access the site, but the back channels were hard to crack, and she earned their respect by contacting them through that, instead of the main resource.

They were a Marxist group who believed in class warfare, and a rising elite who planned on enslaving the proletariat. Honestly, some of their beliefs were a little extreme, and they didn’t often depend on the internet for communication for fear of being spied on. They used advertisements and classifieds in newspapers, song requests on radio stations, dead drops, and a whole host of other means. It was kind of fun, and Skye thought they were nice people, even if they were a little wacky.

**JohnnyLittle-MerryMen-** : **How’s your real-life adventure of _On The Road_ , coming along, Dragon? We’re hauled up somewhere around the parts you're heading. I’ll give you the coordinates if you’re interested- but you know the deal with that, and you know the number you can reach us on. I know you’re in a hurry to find your fam, but Robbie would be stoked to meet you.**

The next message was from Miles, and it was from a few minutes before.

**FellwocksGhost Weirdness just occurred. I think someone is trying to hack our information, someone good. Maybe too good. I hope you’re sure about those extra security measures you’ve been working on. They already made it through mine. **

She tried to tell herself not to panic, after all, who would care about some stupid orphan who couldn’t find her folks? That wasn’t exactly must-need information for anyone else. However, the illegal activity that surrounded it was enough to raise a few alarms for the feds.

Damn, she hoped not. Especially after she promised Grant that she wouldn’t get them in trouble.

**PeskyDragon: They are experimental, I told you. Did you test them?**

His response was immediate.

**FellwocksGhost: I did. I can’t crack it, which, hello?! Impressive.**

**PeskyDragon: Rob and John couldn’t either, but I’m still worried. I’m on the move, so I’d be harder to find, but you’re a sitting duck. **

**FellwocksGhost: I’m not a duck, I’m a ghost. I’ll be fine. I can run whenever, and my parents would totally cover for me. Don’t sweat it. **

She envied his situation, his hippy parents who totally understood and loved him, and his confidence in his abilities.

**PeskyDragon: Are you going to tell Plague that we may have been compromised?**

**FellwocksGhost Not yet. I don’t want to spook him. He’s a wily character. Besides, he might be the problem. **

**PeskyDragon Yeah, it’s a little weird that we never had a problem until he came into the picture. And why about this? I mean, if someone was going to bust us, don’t you think it would have been for the banking records we leaked? That was huge. **

**FellwocksGhost Maybe this is about that, but they’re just putting some pieces together now?**

**PeskyDragon** : **Good point. I’m going to keep a low profile for a bit. Better safe than sorry.**

**FellwocksGhost I’m liking that plan. I’ll do some digging, and keep you posted. You know how to reach me, Dragon. **

She sucked in a breath, then went back to Plague’s email and contemplated a reasonable explanation that could delay their meeting, without freaking the super-paranoid, government conspiracy-theorist out. This was going to be a neat trick. She wracked her brain, staring so hard at the computer that she didn’t even notice when Grant sat down next to her and put their tray of food between them.

“You look nervous.”

Startled, she jumped, then cursed herself for it. Guiltily, she looked back at the screen and grimaced. She quickly types a message to Plague and sent it, before returning her attention to Grant.

**PeskyDragon It’s going to be a bit before we can meet, I have a lead that needs to be followed pronto, before it dries up forever. I’ll be in touch soon.**

She had promised Grant that she wouldn’t get him into any trouble, and now she might have broken that. He was going to hate her.

That part of her that needed someone to like her, that part of her that she hated more than anything, thought about just not telling him. Problem was, she liked him a lot more than she needed someone to like her- and so she took a deep breath and caught his gaze directly.

Which wasn’t a good idea, because he was nibbling on a fry, drawing attention to his absolutely perfect mouth. Why? Why did he have to be so damned beautiful? It wasn’t _fair_. Guys like him were supposed to be reserved for Hollywood, a nice safe distance away, where she didn’t actually have to swallow her lust and try to maintain some semblance of conversation that wasn’t just ‘you….pretty…..dar….’

Luckily, he went from nibbling to shoveling a handful in his mouth. Nothing made someone more human like the ungraceful chewing of food, complete with gnawing sounds. It was sweet, blessed relief from this stupid crush she had on an unattainable boy- that should really have been on the back burner of her mind, considering the circumstances.

“What’s wrong, Skye?”

“I’m an idiot.” She responded mournfully, wiping her hands over her face, before looking at him again. “I think I might be on someone’s radar.”

“What do you mean? Who do you mean?”

She shrugged in ignorance, “I wish I knew. It could be the feds, or it could just be some hacker trying to prove a point.” She hated the next part of what she was going to say, more than she had ever hated doing anything in her entire life, because it meant that she would never get to see his gorgeous face again, but worse, it meant that she was going to be alone once more. Still, he didn’t need her problems on top of the ones that seemed to have stolen his ability to smile. “I think I’m going to have to jump ship, Grant.”

He said nothing.

“Look, I’m going to hide out for a bit, stay off the grid until I’m sure things are calm. You go ahead and do your thing. Drop me your email or something, and I’ll let you know when it all comes out okay, and you let me know how things went down with your parental units.” At least then she wouldn’t have to totally give him up, which was a bonus, really. “You won’t be in any trouble if we split now. There’s no way to connect you to the identity I made for you, and I won’t tell a soul about the car, I promise.”

Still nothing.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a hand up, to silence her. “So let me get this straight. You think someone is on to you, so you want me to turn tail and run?”

“I told you that I wouldn’t get you in trouble.” She reminded him.

His face was unreadable- and it was torture.

“You did.” He agreed, “and you haven’t. You’ve given me an out, which means you kept your end of the deal.” He nodded, as though consulting with himself more than her, like this was an internal dialogue that he was simply giving her access to out of courtesy. She wondered how regularly he allowed people to look behind those carefully built walls of his. She guessed nottoo often. “I’m not in any real hurry now that I have a way to keep out of sight,” he continued thoughtfully, “no way would my parents look for me this close to home; they probably think I’d run in the complete opposite direction.” And something in the way he said that told her he should be doing just that, running from his family as fast, and as hard, as he could, that whatever troubled him was very, very bad. “So I’ve got time.”

“You won’t have time if someone catches up with me,” she replied, despite not wanting to. “You’d end up in juvie, or worse. You’re approaching that age where you could be tried as an adult.”

Why was she arguing against what she wanted so damn much? Oh yeah, because she was a complete moron who lacked any kind of self-preservation skills the moment a hot seventeen-year-old showed her any kind of attention. It was pathetic really. Honesty sucked. It sucked even more because deep down she knew her interest went further than just his looks. It was all of him. It was the way he stared off into the distance, reliving something awful enough to cast shadows in already dark eyes; it was his no-nonsense approach to their situation; it was the way he wouldn’t abandon her back at the library- it was everything. “I’ve been through worse.”

She believed him.

He sighed, “I’m going to stick it out.”

“Grant-”

“My decision.” He cut her off shortly, “you get it? Mine.”

And that was important. It was another clue in the fascinating puzzle that was Grant Ward. Skye loved puzzles, always had, almost as much as much as she loved a challenge, and loved her tragic anti-heroes; _the Breakfast Club’s_ John Bender, for instance, had more than a small portion of her heart. It was like the world had taken some flesh, bone, and blood, then fashioned it into a teenage boy who embodied absolutely everything that Skye would find irresistible, and to pour salt in an already painful wound, gave him a fantastic name like Grant Ward.

While she was just a plain, nerdy 14-year-old who was really more trouble than she was worth. _Doomed, doomed, doomed;_ her mind sang cruelly.

“But why?” She finally asked, “why would you stay and help me like this?”

And he gave her the same look she had given him when she had asked him a similar question; an expression that clearly stated that she was the dumbest girl in the whole world.

“Because you’re my friend, _duh.”_ He mimicked.

Smugness oozed off of him, and she narrowed her eyes in irritation. “You’re a real brat, Pot. You know that?”

“Takes one to know one, Kettle.” He answered, surprising her by _not_ being annoyed at the use of her little nickname for him. She knew what that whole exchange really meant, and she was sure that he did to. A normal person would have thanked him, and then gotten a ‘you’re welcome’ in response. Yet, somehow, in the span of less than two days, they had transcended all that civilized nonsense, and bonded past it. Maybe it was desperation. They were both obviously lonely, and in dire trouble, or perhaps it was something more; perchance Skye dared to dream, it was fate.

She grinned crookedly at him, knowing that she was happier than any homeless orphan, who was possibly being chased by Johnny law, and thus in grave danger of being put away for a very long time, had any right to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you've noticed, I've stolen some Skyeward moments from the show, because the hopeless romantic in me thinks that certain things would be said/would happen no matter how/when/where they met.
> 
> *Song Credit:"I'm Gonna Be (500m Miles) by The Proclaimers
> 
> 50 points if someone knows where I came up with the hacker name Plague :)
> 
> Also, thank you so much for the bookmarks, subscriptions, kudos, and especially the feedback! You guys got this chapter out much faster than it ordinarily would have gotten out. You fed the muse!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye and Grant's bond deepens, while Clint's interest in the case increases.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The replies were so nice, thank you again so much! And I'm excited to almost be at 50 kudos. How cool! I hope everyone continues to enjoy it, and I don't disappoint. :)
> 
> XXXXX
> 
> This chapter was short on Clint/Natasha, sorry.
> 
> The time jump is to move the story along more quickly, so it doesn't get boring, and the flashbacks were put in to enjoy some Skyeward fluff (which is totally deserved, considering how dark the last chapter was, and how angsty the next chapter will be).
> 
> If you don't like that particular brand of storytelling, let me know. I plan on using it again later, if there isn't too much of a backlash. 
> 
> And yes, I put in little Skyeward moments from the show again. :)

**One Month Later**

 

“G-5.” Skye told him craftily. They were playing battleship on a decrepit, barely held together kitchen table, that Grant had fixed with duct tape, super glue, and a few nails. The chairs had been a hopeless cause, so they had been replaced folding chairs, compliments of Wal-Mart’s garden section, which had been surprisingly easy to steal from.

As it turned out, her knight-in-shining armor/car thief/heart throb/anti-hero was a freaking board game junkie. He was just full of surprises, and man did she love surprises. “Hit.”

These were the little things one learned about another when crashing with them for about a month, and spending practically every waking minute with them. It was their safest route, seeing the predicament that they could be in. They had to abandon the credit-card-use, just to be safe, so they had hauled up in a condemned house in the “bad side of town.” Ravensport’s ghetto looked like heaven compared to where Skye had grown up, and she had said so often enough to elicit a groan from Grant every time she brought it up.

 _“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re a hood rat.”_ He would tell her, obviously annoyed.

The condemned building was extremely creepy, and was almost the scariest place Skye had ever resided; third only to the foster family who turned out to really be a bunch of weirdo-o crack heads, using the money they got from the state to get another fix; and the upper middle-class nut jobs with the clown obsession, with the creeper uncle-type who she caught watching her while she slept. The house made creaky noises at night, against the spring wind, and the sole light they had was from battery-operated lamps, and candles- all stolen; however, they didn’t use them frequently because they didn’t want anyone to know the place was occupied. It looked like something out of a horror movie, with more paint chipped off the walls than was on it, broken through floor boards, old family photos with cracks in the glass, vines creeping in through the window, covering parts of the walls, and stains, that generally looked like blood in Skye’s opinion, pretty much all over the floors.

“G 9.”

“Miss.”

“Darn.” She sighed, “it’s 11 AM, Tuesday. What would you be doing right now?” She asked, studying her board carefully, pretending to be thinking out her next move. Not that the game required skill, but she was winning, so she wanted to pretend.

“Ugh. Chemistry. Probably doing a lab.” He made a face, “my partner was the worst. He _wanted to be there.”_ They had a couple of little games they played to keep conversation going, and this one was to remind them that however terrible things seem to get, it was still loads better than where they came from. She guessed, for anyone else, it’d be a depressing game. It always seemed to cheer him up though, and she didn’t mind it much. After all, she hadn’t exactly been living the dream before they met. “I 9.”

“Miss.” She smiled sweetly. He rolled his eyes.

“Where would you be?”

“Gym.” She shuddered, and he laughed. It was a nice sound, and one that had been much rarer during the first few days of their meeting. It seemed to be happening more and more as time wore on. “What do you think Hank is doing now?”

 _Hank_ was the semi-fictional third party of their little group, just another conversation piece for them really, and Skye had to admit that his presence, while kind of messed up, made for great fun. He was the owner of the car that Grant had stolen, and after some prompting, he had given Skye a detailed account of the party-addicted, upper-middle class player that was the benefactor of their journey. It started as them guessing who made the mix tape that Skye absolutely adored to play, which was an amalgamation of love songs that had no business being together. Grant believed that it was a dejected lover, while Skye felt he made it himself, because he was simply going to the club, night after night, looking for that special someone.

“Nursing a hangover.” He deadpanned, and she laughed.

She bit down on her lower lip and look at him, “G4.” When he said nothing, she felt a surge of triumph. “Come on, Pot.” She gloated, feeling impish and smug. “Say it!”

His chest heaved upward, as though this was the most difficult sentence he had ever said in his entire existence so far. “You sank my battleship.” It was grumbled out crankily, and she almost asked him to repeat it, but even she knew when not to press her luck.

They started to put the game away, as she had won 2 out of 3, and that was their limit of plays for one day. She, apparently, _had_ to put on a limit, because her new partner in domestic bliss was never going to, and he could play all day, every day, if she let him.

They stayed in the kitchen, usually, as it was the least damaged room, and had the the most exit routes. The window above the sink, that they could both fit through, the basement door, which had another door that led outside, and the door to the living room, that also led to the front entrance of the home. It took a day of engaging in petty theft and dumpster diving to procure cleaning supplies, blankets, pillows, lights and other necessary items; which included an array of board games, card decks for him, and a battery operated cassette player, with headphones for her. Then it took two more days of scrubbing to make the place inhabitable.

They stole water from the laundry mat down the street, and showered as often as they could by bartering with the manager of the no-tell motel across from it, named Bud. It was a pretty sweet deal, and he seemed like an okay guy. He was always giving them food, and asking if they were in some kind of trouble. She liked him. Grant didn’t trust him; he didn’t seem to trust anyone though, so she didn’t really sweat it. Bud wanted free internet, and Skye complied delightfully, as well as getting him cable from the neighboring apartment building. In return, when a room wasn’t occupied, they were allowed to shower there; and he agreed to not have their car towed.

That was Grant’s idea. He figured that if they were able to identify the car, they’d search the motel firs, giving the two enough time to make a quick exit. It was truly brilliant; he really had a mind for the adventure stuff, which was extremely helpful.

Originally, the set up in the kitchen had been two make-shift beds that they fashioned out of pillows and blankets. But after the six three hours of creaking floors, whistling wind, pouring rain and Skye’s rather vivid imagination, it became one giant bed. She wished that the new arrangement had been some witty plan to get closer to her crush- but in reality, she was just plain spooked. At first he had teased her about it, but for whatever reason, he stopped after that first night, and never had since. When she asked, he never really gave her an answer. Grant was very good at not answering questions, but she had known that since day 1.

Even so, he had changed from that first day they met. It was like he remembered how to smile again, and how to walk around with relaxed shoulders. His nightmares were becoming less frequent, although he still wouldn’t talk about them, even after she asked. When she talked about movies, he didn’t even roll his eyes anymore. In fact, every night before they went to bed, she’d start telling him the plots, almost like a bedtime story. He’d even listen attentively. She wished they could actually watch the movies, but their lack of electricity made that impossible. Besides, it was nice having someone listen to what she had to say, someone who actually paid attention, who asked questions, instead of blowing her off.

They still bickered, constantly. After all, they were two very different kinds of people, even with his softening demeanor. However, his tone was never sharp or bitter with her anymore. When they squabbled it was almost in good fun. That, of course, was a little disheartening, but only because she knew how he saw this set up. He was the big protective brother, and she was the annoying little sister that no one was allowed to mess with but him. She only had to look at their surroundings to figure that out.

The inactive stove was being used as a little nightstand, and on it was a little picture of them from a photo booth in the mall, a booth that Skye had to practically drag him into kicking and screaming. Her eyes rested on it, and despite the message it conveyed, a smile appeared on her lips.

_The mall was filled with kids who looked just like them, making it the perfect place to blend in, and grab necessities. Skye was swift and smooth, taking things had come as easy to her as computers had. People were easily distracted, and she had quick, nimble hands. She’d weave in and out of the lines of people, snagging what she wanted from the proper targets. The wallet from a neatly dressed, unmistakably well-off middle aged man, distracted while kissing his much younger girlfriend, the purse of a girl carrying way too many Abercrombie and Fitch bags to notice that some of her luggage had gone missing, the overly athletic looking tool that was paying more attention to being a dick to the cashier, than the wallet that he sat on the counter…._

_Guilt certainly came with pick pocketing, so Skye, more often than not, went for credit cards; they were more likely to be reimbursed for fraudulent charges, then she tried to slip the wallet back to their original owner. Unless, of course, that person was the tool giving the cashier a hard time, in which case she kept the whole damn wallet._

_She used the cards immediately, giving one to Grant so he could go buy some clothes, and then she went in her own direction- to pick him up a few presents._

_When they reconvened by the mall’s middle entrance, she promptly noticed the photo booth._

_He instantly noticed her noticing it, so as soon as he walked up, “no,” passed his lips._

_She tore her eyes away from it, then to his beautiful face. She raised the two bags in her hands, and said in a pleading voice, “not even if I brought you presents?” Fluttering her eyelashes, she let her lips curve upwards, “really, really good ones?”_

_“Technically, you stole them,” he retorted. “Are you trying to say that you won’t give me the presents if I don’t do what you want?”_

_“What?!“ She exclaimed, squinting her eyes, and raising her brows in surprise, “no! Jeez.” She gave a tiny, quick shake of her head, while she tried to figure out how he jumped to that conclusion._ _“I’m just saying that when you see what I got you, you’re gonna be so overwhelmed with gratitude that you'll be more willing t- oh. Never mind.” She huffed at him, and shoved the bag at him. “Just open it.”_

_He grabbed the bag as it went into his chest, giving her a curious look that she couldn’t quite discern. Then, slowly, he reached into the bag and pulled out the large rectangular box. It was Battleship. “Are you…” he glanced back up at her, his expression mixed with shock, and appreciation. She motioned for him to look back in the bag. “Trouble, a deck of cards, Scrabble, Guess Who- you got all of these for me?”_

_She nodded, “maybe you can teach me how to play poker or something.” She shrugged nonchalantly, although inside she was bubbling over with excitement at his enjoyment of her gifts._

_He let out a small laugh, looked up, then glanced in the direction of the photo booth. “Okaaaaay. Let’s get this over with,” he grinned._

In one picture he was squeezing her cheeks, in another giving her bunny ears, while she made a goofy face. In the last one, he was giving her an affectionate noogie, while she scrunched up her nose, and tried to push him away. It had been a good day for them, and it showed in their faces.

Beside it was a camping lantern, while the candles were clear across the room by the sink, and underneath the cabinets, which was a less safe place for them to be. However, candles by the bed screamed romance, and so there they sat, just waiting to turn them both into crispy critters.

_“You’re going to burn us alive.” Skye complained, “why don’t we put them by the bed?”_

_His expression was exasperated, “you have an opinion on where everything goes, don’t you?”_

_“I have an opinion on dying in a painful way, so sue me.” Was her retort, but she watched as he set the candles down by the sink, before he came back over and set the camp light on the stove._

_They were covered in filth from cleaning, and yet they still had so much to do. She sighed, wishing that there was an easier way for them to go about this. It could have been worse though, she could have been scrubbing years of dirt and dust away on her own. At least she had the company._

_And a dirty, gross Grant Ward was still so incredibly sexy._

_“Over here there are less things to catch on fire,” he replied, “can’t you just trust me?”_

The cabinets didn’t have doors, they shelved the clothing they had managed to accumulate- and the only clothing he seemed to pick for her on their outings would be the kind for a 12-year-old. To be fair, she’d probably pick the same out for herself, but still, if he had any kind of romantic interest, he’d have found something a little more risqué.

_The first item that Skye pulled out of the bag when they got home from the mall, was a new, solid black sweater, that looked very much like something a New Englander would buy, she glanced up at him with an arched brow. “I already have a sweater.”_

_“Skye,” he said very patiently, “that thing is an eye sore.”_

_“Well, I like it.” She lifted her head defiantly, “and I don’t like this. It looks like something the nuns would have bought me.”_

_“Then the nuns have better taste than you.”_

_“Maybe they do.” She replied icily, “they’d probably hate you, anyway.”_

_She played it off as a joke, but it hurt her that he hated the sweater. It really was her favorite article of clothing, and it meant so much to her. Ignoring that tug of pain inside her, she reached into the bag, pulling out a pair of pants that could only be described as mom jeans, a T-shirt with Marvin the Martian on it, and two flannel shirts. “Well,” she sighed, “at least you got the flannel right.”_

_She glanced at his pile of solid black clothing._

_It figured._

It was the epitome of being friend-zoned, the ultimate disappointment, and there was nothing she could do about it. It’s not like she could make him fall for her; she was who she was, and he was who he was. The one thing an orphan learned pretty early on in the game was that there were just some things one couldn’t control. Besides, he didn’t seem to need or want a girlfriend, but family was another story. He needed family as much as she seemed to, not that he owned up to that. But with Grant, she had to learn to hear the things that he didn’t say, because they were much more important and telling than the things that he did. She could be that family, because she knew that was what he needed- and he mattered more to her than anyone else ever had.

The fact that the person who meant the most to her had also been in her life for only a little over a month wasn’t lost on her, she recognized how absurd it would seem to an outsider, to someone who wasn’t them. They would ask how she could possibly know someone so well after so little time, they would point to all of the facts about him that she didn’t have, or the secrets he kept. She also didn’t care. Screw their conventions, and their need to label things. She didn’t need every detail of his past to know him- all she needed was the present.

And at present, Grant was her hero. He was smart, making him resourceful. No way could she have made it this far without him, and she knew that now. He had an intuitive ability to read people, that was only clouded by a rather pessimistic outlook on life. He could tell when she was upset, or when he needed to stop needling her. Most importantly though, was that underneath the gruffness was someone who cared, someone who was willing to help her despite what it would cost him, someone enduring homelessness for her. Grant was someone who would make sacrifices for the people he cared about, and he cared about _her_.

He’d tell her about his past, eventually, when he trusted her enough. She’d be patient about it, because somehow she knew that was what he needed.

Now, to make things easier for her, all she needed to do was get rid of that pesky attraction to him she had. She hoped that it was a good long time before he met some hot babe that caught his eye. Unrequited love was one thing, jealousy was another. Skye wasn’t too sure how she could handle him with another girl, after all, self-sacrifice could only go so far. She was a 14-year-old girl, not a saint!

He was across the room, putting the game in the refrigerator that they now used as an extra cupboard. Then he walked over to the sink, wiped his hands clean in the bin of water there, and joined her. “You haven’t talked for like ten minutes.” He mused; brow rounded, as he nudged her playfully, “have aliens taken over your mind? Skye? Chatterbox, are you in there somewhere?” He asked, taking her cheeks into his hands and peering into her eyes with mock speculation. Her heart skipped a beat, but she pushed his hands off anyway, and gave him a face full of scowl in return.

“No, idiot.” She responded. “I’m just going through internet withdrawal.” And she was, so it wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t what she was thinking about. “Plus I haven’t talked to Miles for 3 weeks, he’s not answering the line. I’m worried.”

They had nixed email for a while, making t so that she had to use the phone to talk to her hacking mentor, as well as the MerryMen. They were the only link that she and Grant had to finding out if they were actually being chased by someone, or if it was just paranoia. The lack of contact from her friends seemed to negate the latter. _Something_ was going on, _which is what you should be thinking about, instead of the pity party you’re throwing over something you can never have._ But her self-admonishment did nothing to make _him_ less attractive, or _her_ less inclined to notice it.

He attempted a comforting smile, but failed. “We’ll figure it out,” he assured her, “we make a good team, I mean, we've survived this long.”

“Thick as thieves.” She agreed, then settled down with her back propped against the pillows and the wall. She drew her knees up to her chest, and covered them with the sweater that he hated so much. She was head-over-heels for the guy, but not even that was going to change who she was, nor would it make the nights any warmer. Spring nights were cold, which was another reason that two beds had become one. “We’re running low on funds though. We’ll have to get some more money tomorrow.”

He grimaced, stationing himself across from her Indian style, with his hands behind him, propping him up. “This time I should do it.”

“You suck at pan handling.” She complained, “you never get us any money. People look at you, the epitome of health, and think ‘man I wish I looked like that,’ instead of, ‘boy, he needs some food.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she didn’t give him the chance. “Not my fault, dude, you’re the machine that works out every. Single. day. Meanwhile people look at me, and think, oh, the poor dear, she could really use a hot meal.” A shrug followed.

“People aren’t that generous.” He warned grimly, “they always have an angle.”

“Yeah, like me, who carries a cardboard sign that says ‘Mom sick. No food. Please help.”Her point hit its target, she could tell vy the lines forming around his mouth. She had originally been wracked with guilt at the very idea of using a fake sob story to get them money for food, but it had quickly been drowned out by the loud rumbling in her stomach, and the mind-numbing fear of going to juvie if they were caught. “It’s either that, or we take the car out to the mall, and liberate some wallets.”

Neither option seemed to appeal to him, but jobs were out of the question, people could do background checks, and they hadn’t been able to track down any under-the-table work.

His non-response was answer enough.

Yup. The key to Grant Ward was always in what he didn’t say.

XXX

What had started as an incredibly boring mission, was turning into a mind-blowing puzzle that was lacking some pretty integral pieces- which, for Clint, was almost better than an ops mission because he enjoyed the hell out of figuring things out.

There was only one troubling aspect- and that was Fury’s intent of keeping the rest of SHIELD out of the loop. So when he gave Romanoff a list of agents whom she could use to build a team, it had been incredibly short. Nevertheless, it was a Director’s prerogative to do what he wanted, Clint guessed, and he trusted Fury enough to believe the director knew what he was doing.

_“You let her make the decisions,” Fury warned, “no input.”_

_“Why?” Then Clint shook his head at Fury’s skeptical expression, recognizing the answer to his question without actually needing Fury to spell it out. “is this really necessary, testing her like this?”_

_“You know I don’t just trust people.” Fury grumbled, “and keep this mission to yourselves, I have an account you can draw funds from, use only it. Nothing SHIELD related.”_

_Clint knew better then to ask why; therefore, he just nodded._

So Romanoff’s bedroom had been transformed into a low tech hub for an investigation, like something that would have been out of a cop show from the 70’s and 80’s.

On her wall was a peg board with a map, complete with pins indicating Karp’s movement in red, his victim’s movement in green. Their pictures, in order of disappearance, were also pinned up next to it, as well as aliases that Karp had used, print outs of his internet conversations, transcripts of the Hatter’s show with potential clues, and print outs of evidence possibly found in the perp’s hotel room.

There was a white-board next to it, with a flow chart-type looking diagram, that connected events and people. It was getting longer, and more complicated with every bit of information- but it didn’t seem to actually flow anywhere relevant.

Next to that was another peg board, this one hauntingly empty. It held all the information that accumulated on FellwocksGhost and PeskyDragon; which was, essentially, nothing. It was like neither person existed, sans some message board posts, and an email that deleted itself the moment it was hacked.

Romanoff’s dresser was covered in printouts of all-things-hacker. Old case files, newspaper stories about famous hacks, files on agents who had been notorious hackers in the past, who they worked with, and who they now handled, incarcerated spies with backgrounds in computer science…

When Clint had thought about how he wanted Natasha’s room to reflect her; this hadn’t been what he had in mind, yet what had he expected? She lived for work.

A new face had joined their little group; the first one picked by Romanoff for the team. She had dark hair, a sultry smile, and a husky voice that, no matter what she was talking about, made it sound like she was coming on to you. The baby blues didn’t hurt either, really. The two were dressed similarly- both in black jeans that fit nicely, but didn’t stick to the skin. Romanoff had on a black sweater though, while the other agent’s was just a long-sleeved shirt.

_“So why Agent Isabelle Hartley?” Clint asked as he looked at the first name on her list._

_“We need a feel on Karp’s state of mind, as well as some thoughts on our hacker friends” was Romanoff’s passionless response. Her red locks were pulled up in a quickly put together bun, that still made her look perfect, and she was wearing a loose, thin cotton black nightgown. He wondered if she realized how difficult that would make it for him to concentrate. “Hartley has covert ops training, she’s spent a lot of time undercover. I trust that kind of judgment more than someone who has memorized a psyche text book.”_

_He gave her a proud smile._

_“Also, she was there when you brought me in. She’s already asked all the really annoying questions.”_

At the moment, Hartley was on the dresser legs dangling over the edge, piling some of the files next to her to clean off a space for her to sit. Romanoff was straddling the back of her chair, chin on the top of it, and he was leaning himself against the door, arms crossed, watching both of them.

They were waiting for Maria Hill, or Cameron Klein to check in from tailing Karp.

_“I see you picked Fury’s pet, Maria.” Clint goaded. In truth, he had the utmost respect for Hill, but he wanted Romanoff’s reaction._

_“She’s more than just a pet. She’s a competent field operative.” And in Romanoff-speak, that was high praise, she might as well have said that she was the best operative out there, besides themselves, of course._

_“And Klein?”_

_“We need a specialist, since I’m in here, and I trust Klein to make the…” she considered her words carefully, “morally sound choices that I may pass over in favor of expediency.”_

_She knew, he realized, making every effort to hide his emotion. Romanoff knew that this was a test, and she was passing with flying colors. She picked a team that Fury trusted completely, but not just that, they were more than that; they each had skills that complemented each other nicely. Pairing Klein and Hill off was remarkably bright, the seasoned veteran, with the up-and-comer? They would play off each other, bring old-school and new-school trains of thought together. While Hill made the tough choices, Klein was notorious for his strong sense of morality. Hartley was different than all of them, an outside-the-box thinker, who spent so much time under-cover, most agents forgot what her personality truly was. She read people with the ease that a civilian did a street sign, and knew how to bend SHIELD protocol without breaking it enough to get in trouble._

_Romanoff lounged on the couch, surrounded by the papers of their upcoming team, “I only wish Coulson had been available.”_

_Fury’s right hand._

_Clint winked at her, “you’re alright, you know that?”_

_“I’m better than alright, Barton.”_

It was time to fill Hartley in, who, while picked first, was late to the game, and when Romanoff looked to him to do it, he sighed with resignation. “So here’s what we have so far,” he began, knowing the information like the back of his hand. “You know about Karp- ex-kgb, expert in Computer Sciences, trained assassin,” discipline kept his gaze from falling on Romanoff, considering he had also just described her, “disappeared for a stint, only to resurface as a hacker for The Rising Tide. How do we know this? That would be helpful, but sadly, we’ve got no idea.”

Hartley shrugged, because like most agents, she was used to being in the dark.

He, however, was annoyed at Fury keeping that piece of information to himself, but made no statement on it; not even to Romanoff. “When he surfaced, it was in Ohio, where he killed a hacker named Jim Morrison, and no I’m not making that name up. He is known online as Jukebox. The guy was a conspiracy theorist, like most of The Rising Tiders, and was quick to believe Karp’s claims that he had intel- a list that a secret government agency had naming people with special gifts, superpowers, he called them.” Uncrossing his arms, he walked over to the peg board, and pointed to the transcript of the conversation, which had eventually spawned twenty more threads speculating on that little bomb. “Now Morrison’s name was on a list found in Karp’s hotel, but that list has other names on it too- names not found on the index. We want you to see if you can make any links, something they may all have in common.”

“You think he could be claiming to have information, but not really having it?” Hartley asked, “While ideal for us, that’s a pretty big risk on his part.”

“Not if he’s dealing with an unorganized bunch of kids trying to start a revolution, but not having any idea on how to.” Countered Romanoff tightly, “and from what I can tell? That is the Rising Tide in a nutshell.” She finally stood up, and Clint, cheerfully, let her have the floor. She walked over to the blank space that should have been filled with information, and Clint could almost feel the frustration emanating off of her, despite her stoicism. She had been killing herself to crack the identities of the two hackers involved. She had forgone sleep, any extracurricular activities, and if he didn’t make sure that she was eating, then she probably would have starved.

“I could hack into Dragon’s email, but all the information was lost the moment I did.” She went on, then turned around, and tilted her head to the side. “The fact that I couldn’t retrieve the information certainly makes Dragon seem like a pro- but yet, if he had that level of experience, I shouldn’t have been able to track the email in the first place.” She glanced at Clint, then at Hartley, “so either it was a trap, and I fell into it- which I doubt. Or…” she paused for a long time, as if having some kind of internal debate, “I don’t know. It’s almost like an amateur hacker got really lucky.” She shrugged, “we followed some clues to a radio station they use to convey information to each other, but the only intel to be retrieved was a few French telephone numbers. It could be a code, and we have some folks working on it, but they’ve come up with nothing.”

“So does that mean we’re going straight for Karp?” Hartley wanted to know.

Clint interjected his information as an answer, “no. He’s working for someone- or so his bank account statements indicate. “Our best bet is to find those two, or someone else Karp wants, and use them to find out who Karp is working for. Unless, of course, we just get lucky, and Karp meets with whoever his boss is.”

Hartley snorted, then shook her head. “Wish in one hand, shit in the other.” Hartley sighed, “okay, I guess I better get to reading.”

XXX

 

If anyone had told Grant that the happiest time of his life would be when he was homeless, squatting in a dilapidated, abandoned house with a movie-obsessed hacker, possibly hiding from the feds, he’d have been incredulous.

However, for the first time, perhaps ever, Grant felt safe, because his family couldn’t find him. Even in Military school, there was always the trepidation that his mother, or Christian, would visit, or take him back home. Even when he stole the car, it had been with the intention to go to the place he loathed the most, and potentially lose that fight.

It wasn’t until they stepped into a dirty, grimy kitchen that would become their home, that his muscles finally started to relax.

Skye helped.

She was sitting across the room, next to the candles, headphones on, moving to the music like the adorable little dork that she was. He almost laughed as he watched her hands in the air, to some song he couldn’t hear, before dipping his head down to ‘read’ the book in his lap. He sat on their bed, Indian style, back against the wall, pillows and blankets surrounding him. His eyes, flickered up every so often, to see what she was doing. She had let herself off the counter, turning around to deal herself a game of solitaire, all the while grooving to the music, her long, dark hair swaying with her.

Grant wasn’t sure if it occurred to her how she helped him, or why. It hadn’t even occurred, consciously, to him until that first night in their new home. It had been raining, and they spent the day trying desperately to obtain items to clean their new space, and make it somewhat habitable, and scouring the old house for some buckets to catch the rain water. They were filthy, the both of them, resembling something like coal miners, fresh out of the cave.

They had managed to obtain enough pillows and blankets to style two little beds, and, exhausted from all their hard work, laid down to sleep.

_Grant woke, grumbling in spite of himself at the ache of his muscles, tightened both from stress and physical labor. The floor creaked beneath him, eliciting a groan as he realized that he was hungry, homeless and completely out of his element. How the hell were they going to live like this? It felt impossible, and the tasks in front of them for survival seemed insurmountable._

_He turned over to see Skye, illuminated by a stream of white light that cascaded from the window above the sink where a street lamp was stationed, a filthy yellow bucket in her hands, walking from the door, to where water was dripping from the ceiling onto the floor, she must have been dumping it. She set it down, and met his gaze. “I didn’t mean to wake you up, I was trying to be quiet.” There were smudges of dirt on her pink cheeks, and nose. Her hair was streaked with grime and grease to the point it almost appeared wet, and he could tell from the glossy cast in her eyes that she was scared._

_He had seen a face like that before, sending a shudder through him as it conjured unwanted memories._

_But he had never seen Skye look like that, in fact, he had been starting to believe that the scrawny, wisp of a girl was damn near fearless._

_“Have you slept, Skye?” He asked, punctuating the sentence with a yawn. She cleared her throat, as if to speak, but only shook her head. “Why? You’ve got to be exhausted.”_

_She shrugged, then crawled into her little nest, pulling covers up over her, but staying on her side, eyes boring into his. He shifted, propping himself up on his elbows to peer around the kitchen. There was a camping light, some cleaning supplies strewn about, and dirt everywhere, but they all cast shadows against the walls. Truth-be-told, it was a creepy looking place, with the kitchen being the least eerie room of the whole house._

_“You’re scared.”_

_“No.” She said quickly, too quickly, and in a tone that was all-too-familiar to someone who spent most of his life frightened._

_“What is it that you’re afraid of? Monsters? Ghosts?”_

_No response._

_“So…” he wet his lips, “you’re telling me that the girl who is not afraid to hitchhike, commit crimes, and save random teenagers from state troopers….is afraid of ghosts?” He asked, trying to keep his tone playful and teasing._

_Her eyes left his, next she began to turn onto her back, and he felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. He cursed himself for being such a jerk, then contemplated a way to fix the damage that he had done. A few options popped into his head, like turning the camping light on, getting her a stuffed toy, or telling her a funny story. However, a light would attract outside attention that they couldn’t afford, offering her a toy would make her feel like a kid, and as for the story, well, funny was definitely not his middle name. When he came to his decision, he fumbled over the words awkwardly. “You kn-know, it is um, I mean, it’s a little cold. And, it would save space if- what I’m trying to say is….did you want to come over here and sleep, Skye?”_

_Two beats later. “Really?”_

_“Yes.” A moment later, he heard the scuffling of her gathering sheets, blankets and pillows, then pushing them across the floor. He positioned himself to make room, and then helped her situate her pillows with his so that it was one larger sleeping area. He could barely make her out, since the light didn’t hit that part of the room, and realized then that she probably hadn’t even realized that she had been looking into his eyes earlier. That meant that Skye hadn’t wanted him to know she was afraid. “You know; it's okay to be scared.”_

_“I’m not,” she responded, but the defensiveness was gone, and her little hand grabbed onto his upper arm. She was laying on her side, but he couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not, it was too dark. “I’m not now, anyway.”_

_His chest tightened, and he stared at the shadowy figure beside him, at the girl who was holding onto him because it made her feel safe. For once the darkness was on the outside, because inside he felt only sunlight._

Grant contemplated that night often, the level of trust it took to curl up next to someone so much bigger, so much stronger, and feel nothing but protected was almost like a revelation. Sure, Skye trusted a lot of people, way too much, way too often, but never to that extent, never enough to open up to let them see that underneath the wisecracks and unfailing optimism was a scared little girl.

He had honestly never met anyone like her.

She had nothing, no home, no money, no family- but she was still smiling, still cracking jokes, still bright eyed, and optimistic. She was grateful for what she did have, and all the while wanted to make the world a better place, not just for herself, but for everyone.

_“So what’s the deal with this Rising Tide thing?” Grant asked between mouthfuls of pizza, provided by their new ‘friend’ at the motel. There was something off about the guy, but hunger overruled suspicion. They were at the kitchen table, where they spent a great deal of their downtime. “I mean, I get that you want friends, but there has to be other message boards, right?”_

_She nodded, leaning back in the chair, her napkin empty outside of a small piece of crust. She never ate the crust. “Well, sure. Of course there are. Tons. I kind of stumbled onto the site looking for my own answers, and really, what I found was a bunch of people also looking for answers. Except, they aren’t just looking for themselves, or looking out for themselves. They’re looking out for everyone.” She picked up another piece of pizza and placed it on the napkin, then took a drink of her canned soda before finishing her statement. “And I thought that was cool, you know. Here are all these people, with all their own stuff to deal with, but they still want to help others. I wanted to be a part of that.”_

_Grant thought of his father, the senator, so obsessed with winning the next election, and how he should be saying what she was, how this should have been his speech. Instead, all he heard about was campaign financing, and looking good in public. “Isn’t there another way you could do that?” He asked, “that doesn’t involve committing federal offenses?” He took another bite of his pizza, a piece of sausage falling onto the floor as he did. He picked it up immediately, and tossed it in their little cardboard box that served as a garbage can._

_She laughed, “oh yeah? And how exactly is a 14-year-old orphan going to change the world, Grant? No one listens to me like this. But there? Online? I’m a somebody. No one knows I’m the girl no one wanted, they see someone powerful, someone who can get things done.”_

_He understood that feeling of helplessness- he spent his life drowning in it. He had spent his whole life wishing he was stronger, more capable, and that he could stop people from fucking with him. Now here was this girl who seemed to want the exact same thing, but went about it in an entirely different way. “You know, maybe you aren’t the girl no one wanted, Skye. Maybe your parents had to give you up, maybe they did it for you.”_

_She shrugged, but he could tell she didn’t believe what he was saying. “So what were the questions you had for The Rising Tide?” He inquired, “before you decided to change your plans to world peace?”_

_She chuckled, “I didn’t change anything, I just added it. I’m still searching for my answers too.”_

_“Answers to what?”_

_She stopped eating, stopped speaking, and for a moment, he thought that she had stopped breathing. Her eyes were zeroed in on the crust of her pizza, as if the answer was somewhere in there. “I just…”_

_He waited._

_“I’m looking for my parents.” She finally admitted, appearing as though she was ashamed of the very fact. “I want to know about them, I want to know where I come from, I want to ask-.”_

_“Why they gave you up.” He completed for her, softly._

_She nodded. “That’s really how I met everyone online, just through that search.” Then she let out a little self-conscious laugh, “I guess it’s how I met you too. So, even if I never find them, which at this point really seems to be the case, it wasn’t a total loss, right?”_

_He smiled back in affirmation._

It almost made him feel guilty, how much she trusted him, when he told her nothing of his own past, even after a few questions. Every time she would bring it up, he would shut her down, or change the subject. When she brought up the nightmares, which he didn’t realize he was still having, he even snapped at her.

_“It’s not important.” His tone was waspish, and he immediately saw her recoil internally, though her physical presence remained stationary._

_“Sorry, didn’t mean to push.” Was her soft, genuine response, “I just, I’m worried you’re keeping all this stuff inside, Grant. You don’t have to, you know. I can be a good listener, you know.”_

_He softened immediately, “yeah, I know.”_

She probably thought he didn’t trust her, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He trusted her more than anyone, or anything, in his entire life. He didn’t even know what trust was until he met her. Hell, he didn’t know a lot of good things about the world until she interjected herself in his life, and took it over.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her; it was that he didn’t want her to stop trusting him, to stop believing in him, to stop feeling safe with him. If she knew how weak he had been, how hollowed out, how willing he was to hurt one brother to protect himself…

She’d probably never look at him the same way again.

And that was a risk he just couldn’t take.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natasha's team finally catch a break. Grant's history comes to the surface in a violent way. Skye's mysterious origins come into play.

Grant was sitting on the bottom step of a large cement staircase that led into, what looked like, an old elementary school, now refashioned into a building full of little shops for the truly _chic_ New Englander to purchase items from.

The street was abuzz with activity, with vendors littering the sidewalk, and quintessential American families going about their day, enjoying the street fair. It reminded him a little of his own hometown, really, watching mothers with a babe in one arm, while the other hand is attached to a small child pointing toward the direction of an upper-middle class father, who was purchasing a toy that his kid just couldn’t live without.

His family looked a little like that to the outside world. He had been to fairs like this growing up.

He remembered his dad shaking hands with families that appeared just like this, promising to look out for their best interests. He was a family-man himself, after all, and he knew how important their way of life was.

These were the kinds of people who voted for his father, and it left Grant wondering if they were really so blind to what was happening within the Ward family; were their closets filled with the same kinds of skeletons, or whether they just didn't care.

There was a little girl with blonde pigtails, and wide azure eyes, tugging at her father’s shirt, trying to get his attention while he, a towheaded giant in khakis and a navy polo shirt animatedly discussed something with a much smaller, bald, wiry vendor.

They all looked innocent enough- but was that beefed up yuppy really locking the little girl in a closet at night? Did he smack his wife around?

 _“You know; you always look for the worst in people Grant.”_ He could hear Skye’s voice in his head, a sentence she had said a thousand times to him, _“you think we’re all monsters beneath the surface.”_

He exhaled deeply, put the rest of the world out of his mind, and focused his attention on _her._

She was sitting under an awning of some greasy diner a ways down and across the street from him, She donned a threadbare, over-sized pink sweater, and wrinkled dirty blue jeans that covered most of her tennis shoes so that all one could see was the worn down tread. Her long mahogany colored hair was clean, but slightly knotted, glasses askew on her face, and she had taken all polish off her nails. In front of her, propped against her knees, was the sign claiming that her mother was sick, and she needed money, while in front of that was a cup. Skye came up with ensemble, hoping to mix just enough poverty with innocence, as to manipulate the money of the soft-hearted. It seemed to be working; people handed her money, or threw change in the cup. He couldn’t tell exactly how much was made, but plenty had been in bill form, most of which she tucked into her pocket.

He could tell how unhappy the whole scene made her, that she would much rather pick wallets from people she thought were assholes, but she was nowhere near as pissed about the situation as he was. No one looked more vulnerable than she did at the moment, and while he was fully aware that the image was purposefully constructed, it didn’t change how it made him feel, or the fact that he was at least a minute away at full sprint. A lot could happen in one minute, and he had spent the better part of the afternoon imagining every single scenario.

This made it extremely strange that when something finally did happen, he instantly froze instead of taking immediate action. It was almost as if he couldn’t really believe it, that somewhere subconsciously he had convinced himself that no one could ever want to hurt such a sweet girl.

There were even precursors, a man who had walked by her twice, eyeing her sideways, Grant even took note of him. He said a few words to Skye the first go around, then dropped some money in her cup the second. He had a bulging beer gut, an awful toupee that didn’t quite match the shade of sepia the bottom of his hair was, the pallor of someone who took poor care of himself, and the clothes to match that. He wore a light-gray stained Coors Light tee that didn’t meet the top of his brown slacks, revealing hairy skin. Now, as he rounded the corner and approached her for the third time, Grant should have sprung into reaction post-haste.

That didn’t happen.

What did happen was that the man spoke words to her that drained the color from her face, next dragged her up from the ground by one arm, knocking her cup over and spilling change to the ground.

A few people glanced over, curiously. The giant with the sweet blonde toddler started stepping towards them, then looking back at his daughter, as if trying to figure out if saving the stranger was worth something possibly happening to his little girl. He arrived at a decision and stopped short.

Grant rose to his feet, mouth dry, and started slowly moving across to the scene that was unfolding in front of him like a nightmare he couldn’t wake from.

The pig was yelling at Skye to stop embarrassing their family, and that seemed to be enough to keep the curious onlookers from interfering. Almost as if they decided, all at the same time, that someone else’s family wasn’t their business. It didn’t seem to matter that he was dragging Skye into an alley. No one seemed to care.

They disappeared behind a building.

Grant sprung to life, running full force to where he lost sight of them. He stopped dead at the sight before him, of Skye being pinned up against a dirty brick wall, trying to kick up and hit her assailant, only to knock over a large tin garbage can, making it roll in Grant’s direction.

“Get the fuck off her, right now.” With that Grant surged forward, snatched the man from behind with the full force of his strength, weight, and rage, shoving him to the ground. “Fucking,” Kick to the ribs. “Piece,” Kick to the side of his gut. “Of,” Another rib shot. “Shit,” his black boot landed on the man’s face, who tried to roll away, and get up.

Grant grabbed him by the shirt, ripping it as he pulled him to his feet and started punching. There were no more words after that, no more thoughts, no more Grant Ward. He was hemorrhaging malice and rage, landing blow after blow until knuckles were thick and red.

He didn’t even realize that Skye had been screaming for him to stop until he felt a hand grab his arm, trying to stop another punch from landing on the man’s broken, and bloody face. “Stop!” She was crying. He could hear tears in her voice, “please, God, please. We have to go.”

The man slumped down onto the ground, chest heaving, body shaking. Blood poured from his nose and mouth, and then onto the ground as he turned to his side, bringing his knees up as far as his large stomach would let him.

Grant too, was gasping for air, body trembling from the physical and emotional deluge that had overtaken him. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, trying to focus on Skye.

Her face was ashen, eyes like silver-dollars, rimmed with puffy, red, moist skin, and lips slightly parted. She was terrified. He terrified her.

Of course, he did. He _was_ terrifying.

She was grabbing onto his arm, pulling him towards the other end of the alley, “now. We have to go now, because people are going to _see_ you.” He heard her breath catch at the last, then looked down at the man coughing and sputtering thick red liquid beside his feet.

Grant let her lead him away.

XXX

While Agent Isabelle Hartley familiarized herself with the research that had been done before joining the case, Clint went over the surveillance footage Klein and Hill retrieved of Karp, and Natasha scoured the cyber world for more clues on the identities of the hackers they needed to set Karp up. The three agents barely came up for air; each one determined to make a break in the case before someone else ended up dead.

Hartley groaned, tossing papers down on Natasha’s dresser, and then leaned her back against the surface. “I just…. It's hard to get a make on people when you can’t see them.” She complained, “There’s so much information in tone and body language. You don't get that from words on a page.”

Romanoff only gave a quick, affirmative nod.

“And Karp is lazy,” Clint added in his grievance, relieved to vent a little. He paused the footage on his laptop, and took out the ear buds he was using, setting them on the bed beside him. “He just sits around, goes to the zoo to make the damn untraceable calls a lot, and waits. You’d think he was the fisherman, instead of the fish.”

“Ha. Ha” Hartley rolled her eyes at the pun. “I’m starving. And I need to get my head out of this for five minutes, so I can look at it with fresh eyes. I’m going to get some Chinese food, either of you want any?”

“Yeah,” Clint nodded, always happy to eat. “There’s a menu on the fridge. Our faves are circled.”

“Am I ordering for the dog too?” She asked with good-natured sarcasm.

“He has crab won tons circled for Lucky.” Romanoff replied, speaking for the first time in hours, but not looking up from the computer. He chuckled, and nodded that she was being honest, and in response Hartley left, muttering beneath her breath about the dog eating better than she did during her stint in the Middle East.

Clint watched the door close, then trained his gaze on Romanoff, “maybe we ought to take a break too.”

“Can’t.”

He heaved an exaggerated sigh, and stood up, stretching his muscles that ached from lack of use, instead of the usual over-exertion. “Are you onto something then?”

“Maybe.”

One word responses, full-on attention, back completely erect….

“What is it?” He wanted to know, crossing the room to get a look over her shoulder, curiously. On the screen in front of her was a message board, looking exactly like the earlier one she had hacked into. This one, however, had fewer names, more posts, and seemed much more highly organized. “You’re on a new tier.”

“Three tiers up, actually. Don’t know how far high up they go. Dragon’s here though, so is Ghost. No Plague.”

“So you were right, they are better. And that means he couldn’t have hacked into SHIELD. So either he’s lying about his information, which seems unlikely to me, or SHIELD has a mole.”

She nodded, scrolling through various names, stopping, next scrolling up, after that back down again. “Finding a mole though? that's going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It would take more than just our little team.”

Clint sighed heavily, leaning against the desk with his back to the computer, and his eyes on Romanoff’s face. It was intent on the screen, aglow from the backlight. He considered how this must be for her, looking for a mole in a new organization, somehow linked to her former organization. Was she confused? Was she conflicted? Did the organizations even matter to her at this point?

Speculation on Romanoff’s mindset was becoming as time-consuming as the case they were working on, and though he hated to admit, more important to him. Not because he had risked a lot bringing her in, and was worried that would backfire. There was no doubt in his mind where her loyalty was. He trusted her unreservedly, much to the chagrin of Fury. They had been through hell and back together, three times over since he brought her in, and while most thought him a fool to put his faith in such a gifted spy, he knew that faith was exactly what she needed. It earned him her trust too. Well, that had, but maybe not as much as the lie that they shared. No, he was more worried about her state-of-mind than anything else.

He looked away from her face, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the peg board in front of them.

No one knew the whole truth of how she came in, of why he brought her in; and unless she confessed, no one ever would; despite the fact that telling Fury would have gone a long way to earning his trust. He guessed that Romanoff felt it made her look soft, more like a human. She savored the fact the people thought she was an emotionless killing machine.

“So we have a little more intel on Dragon here.” Romanoff said thoughtfully, “he must have felt safer on this board- which makes sense, since it took me a hell of a long time to get in, and I doubt that the feds could manage it.” She leaned back in the chair and look at Clint, “he doesn’t seem invested in the Rising Tide at first. I mean; he's not opposed; he just isn’t as into it as the others.”

“Okay.” Clint waited for her to continue.

“But Ghost is- he’s a zealot; and very convincing too. I did not quite realize that charisma could translate into text alone.” She shrugged, “but people there; they are very receptive to what he has to say.”

“And that is?”

“The truth needs to be told. The government is filled with liars and power-hungry sociopaths. He believes in aliens, mutants, conspiracies- the whole nine yards.”

“So he’s Mulder from the X-Files?”

Romanoff looked confused. He just waved his reference away, so that she would continue. “We’re not going to have much luck convincing him to do anything for SHIELD. It embodies absolutely everything he’s against. Short of some sort of extortion, he won’t play nice. And if he does agree to any kind of terms, we would not be able to trust it.”

“Damn.”

“It’s not a total loss.” Romanoff assured him, “we might have a chance with Dragon. Ghost’s convinced him of some pretty intense things, but he’s definitely not totally sold _yet_. That actually works for us; since he is the one Karp seems intent on meeting. Apparently, Dragon is looking for his parents. He was abandoned as a baby, and he thought that Tide’s resources could assist.”

“Why did he think that? Does he have an ego on him, or something? I mean Tide is an organization based on eliminating state security. What would that have to do with one out of a million sob stories?”

“Because he doesn’t have a history.” Romanoff said simply, her eyes went back to the screen, and she started reading out loud. “According to every database, including the CIA, and NSA, I do not exist. I am not listed as even living in the orphanage I grew up in. There is no paperwork for any of the foster families that I was shuffled in and out of for the first five years of my life. My names, my social security number, were both fabrications that lead to dead ends. In a world where we are all nameless numbers, I don’t even have that.”

Clint whistled, “that’s wild. Think it’s a lie?”

“I really don’t.” She responded, “it follows with what I’ve thought of him so far. He’s eager to belong to the group, despite not being completely converted, and it would make sense that he would choose a world where he could name himself.”

She had a point, and so he nodded. “Speaking of needles in haystacks- how would we even begin searching for that criteria? Start scouring adoption records and orphanages? We don’t even know how old he is.” This was all so frustrating, “how the hell do we find this guy?”

Romanoff raised a brow at him, as if he were missing something right in front of him. He followed the dots of their conversation, trying to find the link that she managed to connect. Nevertheless, he couldn’t. It all seemed like a puzzle, where the only pieces they had were identical in color.

“Barton,” she said patiently, “who would have the capability of erasing a person’s complete identity for at least five years? Then create a whole new one?”

It would have to be an organization that the Rising Tide didn’t even know existed, or they would have tried to infiltrate there too. Dawning realization settled like week-old pizza in his stomach. “SHIELD.”

Before they could discuss the matter further, the door burst open, and Hartley was with them. Her eyes were glassy with excitement, and she was breathing heavily, like she had just run all the way from the Chinese food place to the apartment. “Hey, where does Karp keep going again?” She asked, foregoing greetings and explanations in her excitement.

“Roger Williams Zoo, in Providence Rhode Island.” Clint replied automatically, “He’s gone in there at least three times a week. He uses a payphone there, but it never shows up on the records, and anytime he uses it, the surveillance equipment gets blocked.”

“Right, I know.” She smiled widely, “but what are the coordinates?”

Without even asking, Romanoff started typing into the computer. “North, 41 degrees, 47 minutes, and 2.0796 seconds. West, 71 degrees, 25 minutes, and 1.2684 seconds.”

She was full on grinning at that point, “And Barton, you said that they used French phone numbers, right? On that radio show?”

He nodded.

“Okay, so we all know that the first two digits of a French phone number stand for the location of the number.” She explained animatedly, looking much like a kid on Christmas; despite being a drop-dead gorgeous covert spy who could stay calm in even the direst of situations. “One of those numbers were, 02-41-71-16-30.” She waited for them to get it.

“02, that’s Northwest! And those last two digits, who wants to bet that is military time? ” He launched himself to Hartley and spun her around, “you’re a damn genius. Romanoff, you picked a damn genius.”

When he looked over at her, she was typing furiously ignoring his outburst as usual. “The last numbers that Dragon gave, put him in Connecticut. A small town called Ravensport.”

“Okay. I’ll get Fury on the line. Looks like we’re taking a trip.” Clint grinned, and started out the door, then turned to Hartley. “Hey, where’s our food?” He wanted to know.

She and Romanoff exchanged knowing glances, before Hartley answered with; “in the kitchen. Jeez- do you think of _anything_ else?”

XXX

Skye was very certain of three things.

The first was that if Grant hadn’t stopped that disgusting man, he was going to rape her. She still felt greasy hands on her skin, and smelled the putrid scent of his breath. His ugly words echoed in her mind, and somehow she knew that they would stay with her forever. _“You wan’ money, little girl, you gonna earn it like a good li’l whore.”_

The second was that if she hadn’t stopped Grant, the man would be dead, and they would be fleeing murder charges on top of everything else. Assault was bad enough, but Skye hoped that the cops wouldn’t be too concerned with trash like him getting a beat-down. Murder, however, was another story.

The third was confirming what she had always suspected: something incredibly bad had happened to Grant Ward, she had simply underestimated that trauma. Whatever could inspire that level of fury was beyond her comprehension. She didn’t try to imagine what it was, because she knew that she couldn’t.

She had him by the arm lightly, cautiously, not wanting to upset him, or make him think she would hurt him, as she led him away from the street fair, and towards the safety of their home, where she could clean him up, calm him down, and take care of him.

He followed her, almost like a zombie. His face, always pale, now looked practically translucent, and his eyes were so dark and unreadable that it made her heart ache. She had not once felt this distant from him, this far away, like even though she was holding his arm, she would never actually be able to touch him. Unbidden tears streamed down her face, and she wiped them away with her free hand. Her heart was still pounding so loudly in her chest that she thought he probably heard it, and the adrenaline from what had transpired moments before, kept her body rigid and tight. Her mind kept ping-ponging between what could have happened to her, to whatever actually happened to Grant that made him as volatile as he was. All of those feelings welled up, making a painful lump in her throat.

The streets were getting darker with dusk. Skye kept trying to make subtle glances around to note if people were looking at them with suspicion. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so her muscles became less taught as they approached the pot-hole ridden street that their little sanctuary resided on. They were almost there…

Grant stopped, and so she stopped too, turning to look at him. His head was tilted to the side, taking her in. “Hey,” her voice was soft, coaxing, “let’s just keep walking, Grant.”

He sucked in a breath, then looked down at his swollen, bleeding knuckles. He looked back up at her, “that’s how people talk to rabid dogs.” It was said in a low, uncertain voice. For the first time since she met him, he actually sounded like a 17-year-old boy, maybe even younger.

“That’s not…that’s not what I’m doing,” she brought her eyebrows together and stared hard at him, “Grant, look, I just want us to get back to the house, okay?”

“I’m not going back.”

Shock slacked her jaw; she didn’t even know how to process those words. “What?”

His tongue flickered over his lips, and he shrugged. “I’m not going back.” He repeated simply, certainly, irrefutably.

“Then where are we going?” Skye replied, pretending not to know what he meant, because knowing was really too painful. “Well, either way, we should grab some things from the house. Clothes, for one.” She stepped toward him, reaching out, and he, in turn, stepped back, rejecting it.

Her hand dropped. So did her heart.

“You should go home, Skye. Back to St. Agnes.” There was nothing in his voice. It’s like he wasn’t even talking to her. They were just meaningless words between them, filling up space, making it impossible for her to reach him. With that he turned around, heading to the parking lot where the car he stole was situated behind a dumpster overflowing with trash.

She jogged after him, and despite her need to reach out and comfort him, she kept her hands at her sides. “You can’t just leave, Grant-”

“I can.” He interrupted, coldly, not even stopping. He reached into his pocket, fishing for the keys, and the moment they were in his hand; she snatched them away. She took a few steps back to keep them out of reach. “Don’t play games with me right now, Skye.”

“This isn’t a game. Games are fun. This feels a lot like you’re trying to rip my heart out.” She snapped, wishing that she didn’t sound quite as emotional as she felt. “And I don’t understand why.”

He grimaced, first looking to the ground, then the dumpster on their left, then finally at her. “Maybe I was right all along, and you are just _that_ stupid.”

It almost felt like he had struck her. She swallowed hard, trying to keep any kind of grip on her emotions. However, she felt stretched out and beaten, like the events had worn her thin. More tears spilled down her cheeks, and she shook her head, denying what he said, trying desperately not to believe that the words he spoke were infused with sincerity. “You-you’re just…upset.”

“No. You’re just a naïve, attention-starved little kid who doesn’t know a damn thing about the world.” He spat the words out like bullets, and his aim was true. She felt each and every one. “Because if you did, _if you did_ , then you wouldn’t have been hitchhiking with strangers, to go rendezvous with a bunch of other strangers. You’d know better, _Skye_.”

She took another step back, unsure of her own footing, thinking maybe she’d fall into an abyss behind her.

“You’d know that we’re all wolves out here, and you? You’re a tender little _lamb_.” A cruel smile touched the tip ends of his lips, “But instead you just walk around with your head in the clouds, like the whole world is just like one of your precious movies- I don’t even know how someone like you, a ghetto orphan, could manage to be so fucking oblivious, or even survive this long.” His voice was rising, losing that calm cruelty, for a higher, more irrational pitch. “I almost murdered that man. You _watched_ me almost beat him to death, and you’re walking me back home, all la-de-da, like it’s _safe_ to be around me.”

She held her chin up defensively, “I am. I am safe around you. You’re good, and he was doing a bad thing.”

Another step forward on his part, but she wouldn’t let him force her back. No. She was going to stand her ground. “I liked it.” The smile widened slightly, became creepier, and started distorting his features. “That vibration that went up my leg as I kicked him in the head? The way his skin mashed up against my knuckles as it opened up? The power? It felt _good_.” Another step, and he was in front of her. “Does that sound like something a good guy would say, do you think?”

She stared up into his eyes unflinchingly. Her tears were dry, and she felt more composed. “Not really. But I know you, Grant, and I know that isn’t who you are.”

He barked out a twisted, bitter sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh. However, it resembled a sob more than anything else. “You don’t know a fucking _thing_ about me. But you got in the car anyway, didn’t you?” He grabbed her arm, just rough enough to startle her, and then twisted the keys out of her hand as he started dragging her to the blue sedan. With his free hand he started opening the trunk, “You think you know me?” he turned around and shook her a little, that temper flaring again, and afterwards pointed to what was inside the trunk as it opened. “Hmmm?”

Against the gray interior were three large red gas cans, matches, accelerator, some other unmarked containers. “You know fucking nothing.” He repeated, “you got in the car with a guy who plans to burn his house to the ground…with his older brother in it.”

He let go of her, almost more violently than he had when he grabbed her, she stumbled slightly.

“Arson. Murder- and that’s just my future.” He ticked the two off with his pointer, then his middle finger. His ring finger was next, “I dumped my little brother in a well, and left him in there for _hours_. His cries echoed against splashing water, as he desperately just tried to keep afloat in the darkness-” His hand dropped, and his eyes gleamed with anger.

Her chest rose high, then fell, as she shook her head in denial. “No….I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it, _kiddo_.” He sneered.

“No.” She refused, slamming the trunk shut and staring him down heatedly. “I won’t believe it. Because it doesn’t make any _sense_. You’re not that guy. You’re the guy who made sure that I didn’t break into a library in the middle of the night, who kept me along for the ride so I didn’t get killed hitchhiking. You’re the guy I sleep next to every single night, so that _I feel safe_. That is who _you_ are, Grant Ward.”

They stood there as darkness descended, in the back of a trashy motel, next to a stolen car, squared off with raised shoulders and defiant expressions. The smell of garbage wafted through the air, and the world was a dark grey mass around them.

Skye was not going to let that bleakness have either of them, like it had so many of the people who had gone in and out of the foster systems. Their faces would, at no time, hold that futility, that despair of things remaining hopeless forever that she had seen so many times in her life “Whoever _this_ is?” She motioned to the trunk, and then to the fists he had clenched at his sides, keys digging into his left palm, “isn’t you. It’s someone who pain is trying to turn you into. But you can’t let it, Grant. You can’t. I know that whatever is hurting you is bad, really, _really_ bad.” She reached out and took his hands into hers, extracting the keys and dropping them to the ground. She traced the angry red mark from the keys with her forefinger, then his damaged knuckles, before intertwining their fingers, “but you’re stronger than that pain. I don’t think you know that, but I do. I do know that.”

“Skye…” His voice was strangled, and cracked.

“You were trying to push me away, to protect me. That’s the strength inside. The goodness. But you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got back–up now. ” She reasoned sensibly, then reached up and touched his face, her other hand still in his. Just a few short hours ago, being this close to him would have sent her hormones wild, but right then her crush was forgotten in the melee of their deeper emotions.

All the anger, and fury on his countenance dissolved into unmasked torment. There were no more walls.

She cupped the side of his face, “there you are,” she whispered, letting a warm smile punctuate the revelation. “See? I knew you all along.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathed out; his whole body seemed to be deflating before her, and he sagged down into her arms, war-weary and broken. “I’m just so sorry.”

His warm breath mingled in her hair, and she stroked his back lightly, soothingly. “Shhh,” she cajoled in the tone that she used to comfort him during his nightmares, “you’re safe now. You’re safe.”

XXX

John Garrett was not the type to wait around for things to happen to him; and this quality worked in, and against, his favor many times in the past. There was no statistical analysis indicating which prevailed more, nor did he really give a damn. Waiting was for the weak.

He detested weakness.

Weakness left him a ditch, his insides on his outsides, waiting for a savior. Waiting too long. Waiting so long, he almost didn’t make it. _That_ was the moment that his world changed. No one was going to rescue him, because to them, he was disposable. John Garrett was just another faceless, nameless soldier to SHIELD. So he rescued himself- and then _they_ became expendable.

A team of scientists and doctors pieced him back together; they made him stronger, and they told him the _truth_.

If you were going to survive, _you_ had to make sure of it. No one else really gave a damn. That was the way the world worked, the way SHIELD worked, even if the so-called white hats refused to admit it.

Thus, he worked for Hydra, but more importantly; he made Hydra work for _him._ Their science kept him alive, and in return, he did them a few favors, made sure things turned the tides the way they needed them to.

SHIELD had never been that way.

He sloshed the scotch in his glass. There, in the safety of his own home, which he swept for bugs on a nearly daily basis, he could relax and talk about missions, his next tune-up, so to speak, and long-term goals. He was waiting for a phone-call from some of his men, an update on their mission.

The current asset that Hydra was looking for, interestingly enough, had been found by pure accident. A less cynical man would have called it a twist of fate. John didn’t believe in fate, because that meant you weren’t in control, and that was a fucking excuse the pathetic used to remain victims of circumstance. Ironically, it was one of those kinds of people that set John on his current path. If he had zigged, instead of zagged, things might have been different- but as it were, John ended up in a bar, with a retired SHIELD agent who was drowning his PTSD in a pool of alcoholism and bitterness. Going to the bar had been a last-minute decision, and one he was quite happy with.

_It was a hole-in-the-wall dive filled with thugs, and petty criminals, not the type of place one would look for an Agent in, thus its appeal, really. John himself looked like just another townie, in a black t-shirt, rumpled blue jeans, and scuffed boots._

_Agent Henry Holkes eyes were glassed over, his gray hair wiry and shaggy around his face from lack of care. Alcoholism tainted his visage, sagged beneath his eyes, put extra lines around his mouth. Once a fit man, his muscles now drooped from disuse, and he was shriveled. He was the epitome of the town drunk, in a cheap two-day-old grey suit, white shirt underneath sporting a Jack Daniels stain. It made John sick to his stomach to see it, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood it. If he had stayed with SHIELD, let that damned organization would eat him alive. This mess before him would have been his future too. He stifled a shudder, as the man waxed on about missions long-since past, and comrades long-since buried- if they were lucky._

  
_Most of it was drunken nonsense, intermixed with a philosophical bullshit that Garrett had little use for. He was only half-listening, really, until two words caught his attention._

_Hunan Province._

_Suddenly, John Garrett was very alert. He had heard about that mission, though it was more of a legend, or a curse, depending on who you asked._ It had always piqued his curiosity.

_No one knew why a team was sent there, or what they found, it was all deeply buried, classified information. Even so, the story of a team going to the Hunan Province remained. The ‘legend’ said an entire village had been taken out, including SHIELD agents, and while the second team that arrived there escaped, each member would later disappear. Some died in missions; others were captured, tortured and executed…_

_It wasn’t well known, really, and John himself had only heard whispers of it until that very moment with Holkes._

_“When Lynn came back, she was different. Paranoid. That’s what happens to us. We see so much,” Holkes sighed, finishing off his straight vodka, then waving to the bartender to refill. “But it usually doesn’t happen so fast. She was fresh out of the Academy, just back from her third mission. That’s when we’re supposed to be excited about it still. That’s when it’s all still an adventure, and we feel like heroes.”_

_“Here, here.” John agreed, and when the bartender came over, he made sure to pay for Holkes drink, and gave the platinum blonde in the mid-drift, with too much make-up, and a weary expression a big tip. John had seen her quite a few times; she held her own, and he respected that._

_“Thanks, you don’t have to do that though.” Holkes said, “I’ve got money.”_

_It was a pride thing, and John respected that too. “You get the next round. You know, I remember the mission that whipped the rookie out of me,” and John launched into one of his usual stories, slightly exaggerating the details, but omitted the usual comedy in this instance, hoping the tragedy would inspire Holkes to wag his tongue as little more._

_It worked, “it happens to all of us.” Holkes sighed, “but for Lynn? She was like a war vet after that, refusing to talk about what happened. I was her S.O. and I tried to get it out of her, but nothing. Then one night she comes to me.” He took another drink, and John saw ghosts in his eyes; the kind that never went away. “She was scared, saying things about not trusting SHIELD, about how her friends were getting murdered. She told me that the thing they went looking for was an 0-8-4.”_

_“Seriously?” John asked, hair on the back of his neck rising._

_Holkes nodded, “Oh yeah. But it wasn’t an object. It was a baby.”_

_“What? But how could a baby be an 0-8-4? I mean, was it gifted or something? No. Can’t be. I’ve seen the index, no kids are on it yet.”_

_Holkes shook his head, “that’s because she panicked, faked a level 8 clearance and hid the baby in the foster system. She told me to keep the kid safe, but she never got a chance to tell me where it was, or why it was an 0-8-4. She was crossed off shortly afterward.”_

_John weighed that information. He was level 8 himself, with a little digging…._

_“Who else could it be but SHIELD that killed her?” Holkes demanded, but not to John, to a world that this man now despised. He was staring hard at his drink, “who else would have known but our own people?”_

_John didn’t answer out loud, but he had a good idea who._

John immediately took the intel to a man who had spent some time in that particular province. Daniel Whitehall, who seemed particularly interested in that baby, just as suspected. It sent John on a quest of information logging, until he stumbled on a redacted document that led him to St. Agnes Orphanage. He searched for the full document, but came up empty. There was no trace of it anywhere. All of the children, past and present at the orphanage, came up completely normal, with ordinary backgrounds. There wasn’t an outstanding tale to single any of them out.

That was when Whitehall turned him onto an ex-kgb hacker named Karp to try and find the information. He was unable to hack the SHIELD system, unsurprisingly, and seemed utterly useless, outside a few helpful alliances that he had maintained. It all changed when Karp mentioned a post on The Rising Tide about someone with no past, looking for answers. They still had no real identity on the kid, but now they knew she was a 14-year-old hacker who went as PeskyDragon; and after giving her coordinates to Karp, they could track her down. She was traveling with a companion, who they could identify through facial recognition, and the sheer luck that he was the kid of a senator.

Grant Ward.

This would be the third time in his life that John would run across that name. The first was from a Hydra doctor experimenting in subtle forms of brainwashing. He mentioned a particularly susceptible patient that belonged to an abusive family. The second was his old friend from Military School who became a Quartermaster, complaining that one of his angry, but promising students had vanished. His parents were going to cause a world of trouble, and he hoped that somehow Garrett could intervene.

It seemed too good to be true, everything coming together so easily, and maybe it was. John hadn’t decided yet.

The phone rang, and he picked it up, and answered with, “Lok.” A name he used in Hydra, that only the loyalists knew.

“ _Little Spider_.”

Yelena Bolova. John smiled wolfishly. If there had been anything Karp really had been good for, it was _her, his girlfriend._ The word damaged didn’t quite do the young Russian girl justice, nor did obsessed. Her dream was to take out The Black Widow herself, and usurp the mantle. She was well on her way, as far as he was concerned. “What do you have for me?”

 _“That kid you seem so interested in? I finally see why.”_ There was no hint of any accent that would indicate the girl’s origins, which John knew to be Russian, much like Natasha Romanoff herself. _“Skye was attacked, and the boy annihilated him. From what I saw, he would have killed him, but the girl stopped him. I finished the guy off, and disposed of the body. There won’t be police interference.”_

“James did say he had anger issues.” John smiled. Whitehall may have been interested in the girl, but John saw opportunity elsewhere. The kind of history that Grant Ward had was prime for reconditioning to be an asset for Hydra. Add that to James’ ringing endorsements of his hand-eye coordination and it increased John’s hopes tenfold. The kid would be better off for it too, as his tenure as a victim would be brought to an end. “And where are they now?”

 _“Back in their humble abode.”_ She answered, _“I think we should bring them in.”_

“Whitehall thinks that he’ll have better luck if she comes willingly.” John answered, “he wants to study her before experimentation.”

It was too bad for the girl, really, but from the reports, she didn’t stand much of a chance of survival. The weak were always weeded out.

_“Copy that- but I’d like my reservations to be on record.”_

He smiled. “Absolutely, Sweetheart.”

John hung up the phone, and sipped contentedly at his drink. It went down as smoothly as this mission seemed to be going. How nice for him, and all because he went to the bar instead of going home to get some sleep after a particularly annoying mission.

Life was a funny, funny thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the winter finale, I had a tough time writing Skye being very compassionate towards Ward; which is why this took so long. I had to re-watch some season 1 to feel better, haha. 
> 
> You've all been so patient with this slow-moving story. I'm happy to say that the next chapter holds some action. I'll do my best with it, but action definitely isn't my strong suit. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for the kudos, subs, bookmarks, and best of all comments! They definitely keep me motivated, and let me know what you guys like versus what you guys dislike!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything goes terribly, terribly wrong.

Chapter Six

 

The night had been long.

When the dam had broken, Grant’s memories came rushing forward in a stream of consciousness speech, that Skye probably had a hard time following. She, however, did not interrupt, to make a comment, or ask a question. He was glad for that, afraid that if she had, it might have broken the spell that seemed to lift the fog covering some of his recollections, and giving them a clarity they hadn’t had in a very long time.

They were not organized in any particular order. He had started with the well, how Christian had threatened him, forced him to put Thomas inside, otherwise he would be the one who went in, instead of his brother After that he segued into how worse the well must have been, compared with the days his mother left him locked in the closet. He fluttered from his mother, to Christian, then back again. Following all of it by recounting his father’s neglect, his time in the mental institution, and finally all the to get help, only for no one to believe him.

They sat in that kitchen for hours, their backs paralleling each other against the wall, surrounded by covers and pillows. Almost like they were walls, protecting them both from an outside world they could never trust. When he was finished, she took his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers. They sat there in silence; and it was the most comforting quiet that he had ever known.

When she finally broke the stillness, it was in a soft, sad utterance “I’m the first one you’ve told everything to, aren’t I?”

He nodded. “You believe me?”

“Yes.” There hadn’t been a second of hesitation.

He curled up into the bed, his head on her lap, while she smoothed her fingers over his hair until he fell asleep. There had been no nightmares.

Grant Ward had never felt that close to anyone his entire life.

At first it had made him feel awkward. So when he woke the next morning, tangled up in Skye’s limbs, it felt less like a friendship, than it ever had. Nevertheless, whatever it was; it lacked definition. They weren’t blood. They weren’t romantic. What the hell were they? His eyes trailed over her, the swath of dark hair against the pillow, the gently smiling mouth, on a warm complexion, the way she shifted without him in the bed, as though searching for where he went; and he knew then that she laid a deeper claim on him than anyone, or anything, ever had.

_“You’re the guy I sleep next to every single night, so that _I feel safe_. That is who _you_ are, Grant Ward.”_

He squatted down, brushing the hair from the sleeping face. He always wanted her to feel safe, to never have to go through what he went through. It had been his intention that first night, but never had he felt it so strongly than right then. The simple thought of that man’s filthy hands upon her shoulders, sent shivers of rage through him.

First, he took a deep, calming breath, after that he counted to ten, and when that did nothing to assuage the anger that escalated by the second, he walked out the door and into the blinding sunshine of outside, without his usual sneaking. He needed to go for a run, try to rid himself of the adrenaline that way. It was frustrating not being able to control that hard-earned rage inside him. It felt as innate as breathing to him sometimes, and yet completely beyond his control.

It had almost lost him Skye, and really; they were all each other had.

He hadn’t realized how important to her that he was until the night before, not truly, and it left him with a warm humming inside.

He looked out onto the street; both ways. The two bus stops in sight were populated with early-risers going to work. Some men in outfits geared for construction, others in business-casual that, due to his own upper-crust upbringing, looked outdated and aged. He took a difficult breath and started his jog, hitting a steady gait and keeping it, while trying to lose all of his thoughts in the thudding of his heart, the deep breathing, and the rhythm of his feet pounding the ground. Thankfully, it worked, and his mind was calm and steady by the time he realized that he was back where the street fair had been the day before. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, and then began to stretch his muscles out, while steadying his breath and pulse. His body was used to the workout, but there was still some soreness and stiffness.

A sheen of sweat covered him, slicking back his hair, and causing his t-shirt, and black pajama bottoms to cling to him. His eyes fell onto the alley where he had almost beaten Skye’s attacker to death. For a moment, he expected rage to grasp him once more in its clutches; but instead, tendrils of wariness were reaching out.

He found himself walking toward the alley, which seemed as still as it had before he had found Skye there. He looked around, puzzled. There were no blood stains on the ground. No indication whatsoever that anything had happened at all. All that remained was a darkened alley, with a dented trashcan against brick walls, that had black fire escapes climbing them. It was like the entire event was a bad dream.

Sure, maybe the police would be gone; it was the next day after all, but they wouldn’t have cleaned up the blood- would they have? He stared down at it, walked out of the alley, and looked across the street. It was quieter than the day before, all the vendors had cleared out, the families gone, and now only the usual pedestrians remained.

Something was wrong. This was a good neighborhood; assaults like that would cause a stir. It would cause _something_. The alley wouldn’t be empty. Curiosity would drive people to investigate it themselves…

An assault would also be in the police beat. Grant made his way over to the news vendor on the other side the street, who looked an awful lot like the vendor that had been selling the blonde giant a toy for his daughter from the day before. Grant frowned; his mind must have been playing tricks on him. “Some fair yesterday, huh?” Grant asked the man as he approached, fishing into his pocket for money to buy the paper.

The man nodded, “sure. It was nice.”

“Me and my girl left early.”Grant continued conversationally,“anything interesting happen?”

“Nah, not really.”

Grant nodded, handed the man the money, and subsequently the man handed him the paper. Grant gave polite "thanks,"started walking away, all the while opening up the paper, wrestling with the pages as quickly as possible to get to the police beat.

No assaults. None. He reread, seeing if maybe he missed it. No.

Grant folded up the police-beat, discarded the rest of the paper, and despite the knowledge that his muscles were going to hate him for the next two days, he started jogging home.

The time didn’t pass nearly as quickly, nor was his mind as clear. By the time he made it back to the kitchen, he was sore, exhausted, and confused. He had gone over any possible scenario of what could have occurred. Perhaps, by some miracle, the thug had walked away. But then where was the blood? Maybe he owed a debt, and someone finished him off, covering up the crime. But what were the odds of that?

When he pushed open the door, another question mark almost smacked him across the face.

Skye was awake….and packing.

She was dressed as he had first seen her, but somehow looked different. Nothing had outwardly changed though, and for a moment, he forgot everything in the whole world, and tried to figure out what was distinctive about her.

“Well, don’t you look sweaty.” Her joking interruption brought him back from a fruitless endeavor.

He stared at her open backpack, the computer peeking out as she stuffed a pair of sweats in, and a tee shirt. “You’re leaving?” His fears about the vanishing assault victim were stuffed back in favor of this new, alarming development.

Those shouldn’t have been his first words; he ought to have known better than that. However, disappointment was all he had ever actually experienced, and they hadn’t had enough time to recondition him out of his default mode. “ _We’re_ leaving.” She corrected, not even bothering to cover the fact that he had hurt her feelings. “I was thinking about what you were going to do to your brother-”

“Skye-” He began, having no idea what he was really going to say, but not getting the chance anyway.

“Let me finish.” Her hands dropped at her sides, and she gave him a plaintive look, so he nodded. “I know that you think you were just going to kill him, like it was some kind of vengeance thing. Honestly? After hearing _everything_? I don’t really blame you. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to do it, not because I think any of those monsters deserve to live; but I don’t want to see what that would do to you.” She paused, looking down at her pack, then back up at him with fathomless eyes, behind those thick glasses.

He placed it then, what had changed. She looked _older_. It wasn’t physical; the gangly, tiny body, and baby face that kept her from looking her actual age of 14 remained. The variation was in how she held herself, how she talked to him. There was a resolution in her voice that went further than the bratty stubbornness of the girl who was going to remain at the library just to spite him for his rejection. Her steadfastness was now born of something else entirely, a sort of wisdom gained through experience. “I don’t think it was vengeance though, Grant. I think you were trying to protect Thomas.”

Her belief in him was astounding, even if, in this case at least, it was misplaced. “I don’t want to lie to you, Skye. I wish that I could say that I was being noble, but I honestly…I…I…” It was hard to get the words out in front of her, especially when she looked at him like he was some kind of damned hero. It was satisfying to be viewed that way, after being the dirt on someone’s shoe for so long, and he didn’t want to destroy it. Nevertheless, he owed her honesty. “I want Christian dead.”

The expression didn’t change, and his body relaxed ever-so-slightly because of that. “And a part of me really does too; but if it was only about getting back at the people who hurt you, you’d make damn sure that your mom was in there too. But you didn’t. You picked a time when your parents would be at the vineyard, you said so last night. And why? Because your mother loved Thomas; she would never hurt him. So getting rid of them, well, that wasn’t a concern.” He was quiet, unsure of what to say, trying to scan his own thoughts to find any vestige of what she proposed in there.

“Maybe you don’t even realize that right now, because they had you so convinced that you were like them.” She stepped around the bag, to place herself right in front of him, lifting her face up. “And if you had stayed with them, maybe they would have finally convinced you that it was true- and that good inside you; it would have been all twisted up, and- and…” She sucked in a calming breath, “and you’d be what they would want; but unlike them, you’d hate yourself for it.” She swallowed, looking like she was about to cry. He didn’t think he could handle her tears, not right then. His whole body felt limp, exhausted, and shaky. “Just think about it, Grant, think really hard. When you were making that plan, to burn Christian alive, was it his face you were seeing in the flames?”

In truth, he had never envisioned anyone’s face. All he had seen was sweet, blessed freedom. “I didn’t picture anyone.”

“Not their suffering?” She pressed eagerly.

He shook his head.

“You see?” She stepped back, composed again, then walked over to the shelves and grabbed his duffel bag, tossing it to him. “If this was about some dark vengeance, you’d have fantasized about him suffering.” He caught the bag mid-sentence, and looked at it like it was an alien. Everything felt foreign to him right then.

What she said made so much sense, clicking inside his mind like the missing piece to a puzzle that he had desperately been searching for. Or maybe he just wanted to believe it, because it meant her faith wasn’t misplaced. It was strange, how little he seemed to know about his own self, outside of white hot fury. “You’re an expert on it, huh?”

“I’ve had my fair share of vengeance fantasies.” She told him easily, “I mean, look at me, I’m like bully bait. Now get packing.”

Reality struck him, “none of that explained why we’re leaving.”

She froze, tilted her head sideways, as if realizing he was right, and then laughed. “You’re right. Sorry- got caught up in that emotional tidal wave. My bad. We’re going to finish what you started- minus the arson and murder, because, moral reasons aside, it was a _terrible_ idea."

Despite it all, he chuckled at her cavalier dismissal of it now, like somehow she made it a distant memory. He walked over to the shelves, and started picking out his favorite articles of clothing, and a few other essential items. “So?” He urged.

“Well, we have to protect your brother, right? And that means getting rid of Christian. But honestly, I think your mom’s gotta go too. Sure, she’s not like a physical threat. But that woman should _not_ be raising cattle, let alone children. I mean, she’s probably doing serious damage in some other way.” Skye reasoned. He heard her zipping up her bag, “plus, I hate her…like a lot.”

Grant just shook his head, even though he knew she probably wasn’t watching him to notice. “You’re stalling. You don’t even have a plan, do you?”

“Jerk.” She muttered, “I always have a plan. You just never like them.”

A heavy sigh preceded his annoyed, “so true. And I probably won’t like this one.”

“Probably not.” She agreed. He looked around their little kitchen, loathe to leave it. This had been the only home he had ever really liked, despite the lack of electricity, running water, or any other amenity. A casual observer would think him crazy to prefer it to the mansion that he grew up in; but then they wouldn’t have looked into the closets to see the mountains of skeletons building up. He picked up the picture set from when he and Skye were at the mall. It was the first picture of him wearing a genuine smile. He folded it over on one of the white lines, and slipped it face up in his wallet. “I have some friends around here. I’ve told you about them, The Merry Men.”

He groaned; “you mean your potential serial killer Internet friends?”

“They’re not.” She refuted, then faltered, “but they’re not entirely…. Normal. Look, I trust them. They’re the first people I contacted when looking for my parents. One of the nuns at St. Agnes, well, she told me to look into them; said maybe I ought to start searching for my folks.”

“Why do you think she did that?” Grant wondered, although he hadn’t entirely meant to say it out loud. A long silence followed, as if she had never questioned that before. Grant turned to observe her, and the puzzled expression he found told him everything he needed to know. “You didn’t even bother to ask her why, did you?”

“Uh, no.” Half of her mouth was turned downwards, “that’s weird.”

“You trusting too easily? No, that’s par for the course. How did you survive getting to that gas station?” His voice was incredulous.

“I have my ways,” but it was a half-hearted mumble, then she turned away from him, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “Her name was Sister Mary-Cecilia. She was ancient. Sooooo old. And like most of the nuns there, she came and went. None of the sisters stayed long- but she was always a repeat. She came back more than any of the others.”

“So this old nun told you to go look for your parents? She basically told you to run away?”

“Kind of, yeah. Or, at least, she suggested that I find out who I was. And she gave me their website. So I went, and at first it got me nowhere. But then I entered a few back doors, looking for some answers. And ran into a hacker named Robbie.”

“Merry Men? Robbie?” He snorted, “do hackers live on cheese?”

She bent over, snaking her hand out for a pillow and tossed it at his head. He easily dodged it. “Oh shut up, Pot.” She motioned to his bag full of black clothing, “like you’re one to talk about cheese.” A roll of the eyes followed, “anyway, Robbie helped me out, in a big way, got me into some government files and whatnot to see if I could find any trace of who I was there.”

“Why would there be anything on you in there?” Grant wanted to know, suddenly remembering the very big mystery that had sent him on the second run of the day, the one that left him feeling like a limp noodle.

Skye shrugged, “we thought maybe I was a black market baby, or stolen from China and brought over illegally, or maybe my mom was an illegal alien.”

“Oh.” That was a relief.

“Point is, they have the tech someone would need to hack into the FBI.” Skye concluded, “and they’ll totally hate your conservative, Republican family. It’s going to be easy as pie to convince them to frame your mom and brother for some serious stuff, and get them out of the picture. Boom. Thomas is safe, and no one dies.”

Instinct told him that something was very wrong with this plan, and it took his cognitive processes a moment to catch up to them. Finally he nailed it, “uh, hello? Earth to Skye,” he loved that joke, especially the glare it provoked from her, “you’ve been steering clear of the web for a damn good reason. FBI? Juvie? Unhappiness? Ring a bell?”

“Oh my God, I totally didn’t think of that.” She shot back, sarcasm infusing every syllable, to the point of abuse. “I have another tag, and another email; only two people know about it. Robbie, and me. Well, I guess three now, since I just told you.” She mouthed the word ‘oops,’ then smiled. “I’ve put off using it, since it’s an emergency thing. But we are now in emergency mode, and if anyone besides Miles can tell me if my handle has been made, it’s Robbie. I contact Robbie, then we meet. We need to be ready, because the Merry Men are one paranoid group of people. It’s either quick, or not at all with them. ”

“What about that Plague guy, and the search for your parents?”

“It’s waited this long, it can wait until your brother is safe.”

“I hate this plan, Skye.”

“I know.”

He zipped up his bag, and shook his head in complete disbelief. How stupid was he to go along with this? “Fine, whatever. We do this. Getting out of town seems like a good idea to me anyway. This place is weird.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you on the way to the car,” he replied, already on his way out the door. He didn’t want to look back, or give himself any more time to think about walking away from the safest place he had ever known. It was time to move on, and at least he had the fortune of knowing he wasn’t alone in that.

“Oops, I almost forgot our tape. Hank would be _so_ disappointed.”

Grant kept walking, not turning back, but this time it was to hide a rueful grin. If he had thought, after the explosive events of the night before, that she was going to treat him differently, he had been mistaken. That left a warmth inside him, that seemed to be spreading. “Oh, and we’re going to the motel first- because you need to shower. I mean, you smell like the boy's locker room. So gross. Besides, I can connect there and email."

 

**XXX**

**  
**

They had arrived at the motel early in the morning, before sunlight peaked out to wake up the masses. Cheap motels were a SHIELD staple, no one thought to look in them for anything but criminals, and the clerks usually didn’t ask a lot of questions. Clint had seen a thousand of them, and they always looked the same to him. Dirty blinds, worn carpet, chipped paint, light, worthless furniture, and lumpy beds. The colors changed, the furniture was always in a slightly different place;

At Romanoff’s request, they donned disguises.

Clint was dressed as the every-day businessman one would find in a New England small town. He darkened his hair, used clay and make up to elongate his nose, and chin. He donned a navy blue suit, purchased with cash from an upper-middle class retail store, wore designer glasses, and carried a briefcase. His tie hid a camera, that took pictures when he adjusted it, underneath the suit was Kevlar, strapped to his leg, a pistol, the other leg was a tranq gun, in his ear, he had a nude colored comm unit that also served as a tracker, and in his briefcase was his crossbow.

Hartley looked like a fitness junkie, which suited her toned, and perfectly muscled body. She was wearing a muted violet jogging suit, ear buds, and a fanny pack. She donned a blonde wig, fashioned into a loose ponytail, her lips were made fuller, eyes larger and brown, her cheekbones far more prominent, and her face much more angled. He had no idea what, or where her tech was.

But Romanoff was the real magic.

It took Clint a moment to realize that the frumpy, middle-aged housewife in mom-jeans, a white and pink rose patterned turtleneck, and poorly brushed red hair was her. Her eyes seemed slighter, with large puffy bags beneath them, her face looked fuller and chubbier, matching the posture and body type that she had given herself, and he wasn't entirely positive how she managed to make her nose look so much tinier than it was, but miraculously, she had. Natasha Romanoff looked, and walked every bit the part of an exhausted, put-upon house wife.

“You’re a damn, artist, Romanoff.”

She shrugged, “pretty much. Your comms are on?”

He and Hartley nodded.

“Okay then, we have our areas to investigate, meanwhile Fury has someone online, checking local cyber activity, doing all the background checks of the people who have stayed at the hotel, and the license plates of the people in the parking lot” She told them stiffly. Last night, while she still looked like the espionage bombshell whom she was, Romanoff seduced all the information they needed from the night clerk, while Hartley logged the license plates, and Clint went through all the sign in sheets, and paperwork in the office.

Clint nodded, and as such, was the first to leave the rent-by-the-hour motel room. He found it strange that they didn’t know the name of the agent keeping an eye on the Internet activity; however, it wasn’t an integral question, so he packed it away with all the other mysterious moves Fury was making. At some point, he would put them all together, and see what the hell was going on.

Att the moment though, he had a mission, and he had to keep his focus there.

Which was an odd one, considering they had no idea what exactly they were looking for. The targets had no faces, no histories- only a few personality traits revealed over Internet conversations, some assumptions made about ages and possible appearance, and locations one might find hackers. He was to start at a swanky motel in the downtown area, in case the hacker was using a stolen identity to live the good life, which Hartley thought was the most likely.

Hartley herself was going to chat up the locals act like she was looking to buy a place in town, see what the landscape was like on that front.

Meanwhile Romanoff was checking all the places with public access to the Internet; other hotels, cafes and libraries.

So basically, they were just stabbing in the dark.

As he made his way toward his rental car, he noted two young kids walking close together, towards the hotel room. One was a rather scrawny girl, with olive skin, long chestnut hair framing her face that held thick-rimmed glasses, in an eye-sore which some might mistakenly call a sweater. It was bright. It was big. It was atrocious. Alongside her was a sweaty athletic teenager, at least a few years older than her, in a black tee and grey sweat pants. He had a shock of dark hair, that looked black to Clint, but might have just been an extremely dark brown. It was hard to tell against his pale skin. Maybe it was because they look so ill-matched, but he adjusted his tie to take a picture, all the while straining to hear what they were saying.

“He probably just got up and walked away,” she was whispering.

“And cleaned up the blood before he left?” Came the boy’s sarcastic reply.

Their hushed voices wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by the casual ear, otherwise Clint doubted that they would have been saying anything at all, if the suspicious huddling together, and urgent tones were any indication of a desire for privacy. “But it doesn’t make sense-” she stopped abruptly eyes scanning his face as they approached a more natural hearing range, Then a moment later he barely heard her continue with: “why would someone cover-up that assault?”

“I don’t know. But something really, really weird is going on.”

“Two kids, the girl anywhere from 12 to 15, the boy from 16 to 19, are walking into one of the rooms. I have a funny feeling about them; they look mismatched, and why are they going to a sleazy motel?”

 _“Don’t you remember being a teenager?”_ Hartley joked on the comm.

 _“My eyes are on it.”_ Romanoff broke through _,_ “I’ll get a picture and send it directly to Fury.”

He liked that she didn’t question his instincts, that she just immediately went with it. “Thanks. They were talking about assault, and a body disappearing.”

He stepped into the black sedan, and started the vehicle up.

Time to start their search for a needle in a haystack.

 

**XXX**

 

Across the street, in a rundown apartment that smelled like unwashed socks and cigarettes, which currently had two crack heads tied up and blindfolded in a closet, a red-haired Russian assassin witnessed troubling events unfold.

She had been watching the kids in their little condemned-house paradise, and listening to their conversations. This was not the first time that the MerryMen had been mentioned by Skye, yet all the reconnaissance in the world had failed to bring up anything alarming about them. They were just a silly little Marxist group, probably comprised of college students in tin foil hats, with no real understanding of how the world worked. But then why did the mere mention of them raise the hair on the back of her neck?

When Ward went on the move, she had one of her men, Wallace, follow him, since Whitehall was more interested in the girl, that meant she was too, and so she stayed in position. It might have been the wrong call, since a little later, Wallace reported the boy engaging in strange behavior. He went back to the scene of his assault, then began checking the newspaper to read about the events.

Yelena was beginning to see why that SHIELD agent was so interested in him. He was a smart kid.

When she saw Ward return, he was drenched in sweat, looking exhausted, and distressed.

Still, there was no real way that the two runaways could figure out that they were being spied on, not with such little evidence. They’d convince themselves it was a coincidence, just a strange happenstance. Why would they think anything else?

It’s not like they knew that the girl was an 0-8-4, therefore a potential gifted, and the new target of a sociopathic scientist’s obsession. Nor could she have any awareness that she was a stepping stone for Yelena to get in with an agency that could give her access to the one thing she wanted more than anything. The two teens were just casually going through their lives, thinking they were one step closer to finding her parents, and apparently framing his family for whatever they could. Soon she'd follow them out of town, and find out just who these Merry Men really were.

Yelena didn’t bother reporting it, and instead settled back calmly into the window with her binoculars.

Soon Ward emerged, still sweaty, with his duffel bag over his shoulder. The girl came out a second later, with her backpack on too. She followed their journey to the motel closely, and went rigid as they entered the parking lot, and passed a vaguely familiar man.

Yelena's entire body went rigid.

He had on a disguise, and if she hadn’t been paying close, _strict_ attention, she'd have never known it was him.

His nose was longer, his hair different, and if she had been anyone else, or even herself at any other moment, she’d not have known it was him. But she caught him as his lips moved, as he talked to no one and quickly deduced that he was on a comm unit, and she’d recognize that confident walk anywhere. She had spent a great deal of her time memorizing every detail of him that she could. After all, he was going to eventually be the one that led her straight to her ultimate goal- _The Black Widow._

Agent Clint Barton.

She was now presented with a choice, and not a particularly pleasant one. Did she follow the agent herself? She didn’t trust that anyone else could, and manage not to get caught; or did she stay with the children?

There wasn’t enough time to call in for orders. It was up to her.

Immediately, she was on the move, exiting the apartment to follow Barton, while radioing two of her men about the situation, making sure that they knew SHIELD was in play, and that they had to keep their eyes on Hydra’s prize; while she kept them on hers. She ordered another of her men to call in the new development and let them deal with the Lok and Whitehall’s disappointment instead of her.

 

**XXX**

 

Both Hartley, and Barton were gone. It was Natasha's turn to make a hasty exit.

Instead, she waited.

Barton had damned good instincts when it came to people; if he had lived at another time, and was another gender, he’d probably have been burned for witchcraft. Waiting a few minutes, before venturing off onto a blind mission would harm nothing, and possibly gain them a great deal.

“I’m going to hang tight until those kids leave, I’d like to see where they go.”

 _“Copy that.”_ Barton replied, _“let me know how it pans out.”_

 _“What is taking so long on the background checks, and license plates?”_ That was Hartley, voice slightly altered from the jogging that she was most likely doing.

Natasha stared intently out the blinds of the motel room, waiting for the two mismatched kids, wbhile standing still as a statue. She only answered so that Barton wouldn’t have to. People tended to notice when someone was talking to themselves, and he was in no position to want to be noticed. “It’s because we’re dealing with hackers, good ones. They can scrub identities.”

Silence on Hartley’s end, no doubt so that she didn’t attract unwanted attention either. Communication on their parts would be limited.

 _“We have a hit on one of the juveniles.”_ It was Fury, who was speaking for their unknown team member manning the computers. _“We lucked out; the boy is the son of a senator. His name is Grant Douglas Ward. His family lives in Massachusetts, so it’s interesting that he’s in your neck of the woods. We don’t have any other intel on him yet- oh, never mind. My man here says he’s supposed to be in Military School, but disappeared a little over a month ago. He’s in their system, checking records. So far no background in computer sciences.”_

Criminals, political figures, possible threats, agents of all organizations, and all of that list’s families were always the first individuals scanned by the facial recognition program. They lucked out there, but that might have been the end of their fortune since he had no obvious background in computers.

_“No, nothing about computers in his records at his former private school either. Just a lot of absences, and a lot of suspensions. That kid has a temper. Military School must have been the Wards answer.”_

She heard Barton make a derisive sound, _“well, it would have been nice, catching our guy right out of the gate. But I’m glad it isn’t him. We couldn’t have used a kid as bait, anyway.”_

 _“Move out, Agent Romanoff.”_ Commanded Fury.

Natasha kept still; eyes held fast on the door that those teenagers disappeared to. Being good at her work took more than training, more than dedication, it took knowing when to trust your gut. She knew it was cliché, but she also knew that things became cliché for a damn good reason. It wasn’t just Barton’s instincts that she was trusting anymore; her own intuition was telling her that this was a lead she should follow. “What about the girl?”

 _“The girl looks like she’s 12-years-old, Agent.”_ Fury made no effort to hide irritation, “are you telling me that you think you got out-hacked by someone barely out of diapers? Now I gave a direct order.”

“Copy that.” Natasha replied reluctantly, pushing open the door, and then shutting it behind her. She put the key in her clunky, large purse, and started off toward the bust stop.

A moment later the two kids emerged, freshly cleaned, from the hotel room.

Knowing people was her job, and if there was one thing she knew about spoiled rich teens with a face and body pretty enough to land a modeling career it was that they didn’t waste their time with nerdy waifs who didn’t even know how to dress themselves properly.

An idea struck her. “Could you check to see what company this motel uses for their Internet?"

Barton had said all of their records were poorly organized in filing cabinets in the back, but she distinctly remembered the night clerk being on a very nice-looking laptop, perusing a message board when she approached the desk. It couldn’t have belonged to the cheap motel, nor could the connection, since there were no other computers available. So how was he online at all?

_“None. They don’t have a connection.”_

“ _Impossible_!” Barton’s whisper was fierce and disbelieving, after drawing the same conclusion she had, “ _what are the odds we find our needle on the top of the haystack?!_ ”

The odds were about zero, and Natasha, who had always found that life tended to dish out worst possible scenarios, knew that better than almost anyone. Regardless, to _not_ follow a lead, especially when so few were available to them, would have been sheer stupidity. Not that she planned on telling that to Fury, who didn’t seem too concerned with the wayward youths.

“Do your parents know you’re going to motel rooms with older boys?” The voice that came from Natasha was one of matronly concern, despite the actual words being an accusation. Her voice was so foreign, even to her. She hadn't waited for Fury to decide their fate, fearful that he would pass up on the opportunity.

“Oh,” the girls’ face flushed scarlet, and she glanced at the boy, reddening further, before looking back, completely and utterly flustered.

“What’s it to you?” He was abrupt, annoyed at the intrusion, and eyed her with distrust, before he started to look around them, then down at his watch. They were on a schedule of some kind, and he felt like he was being watched. Interesting.

The girl elbowed him lightly in the arm, and gave a big smile. “Excuse him, please. He gets grumpy when he’s hungry. We haven’t eaten yet. Dad was supposed to bring us some food home, but,” she trailed off and shrugged. “He didn’t come back. We came here looking for him. Sometimes he shacks up here, you know.”

“You two are siblings?”

“Half.” She responded, “His mom’s dead, my mom bailed. Dad’s not been the same since. It’s been a real hard knock life, you know?” She deceived easily, and if Natasha wasn’t such a damn good lie-detector, maybe it would have gone unnoticed. The boy barely reacted to them, as if hearing lies was completely natural to him. “Since he isn’t here, we’ll just head to town, see if he’s there.”

 _“Still nothing on the girl.”_ Fury’s aggravated voice came through her comm at the same time the girl was giving her explanation; years of experience allowed Natasha to listen, and understand, both.

“I was heading into town too,” Natasha informed them in a frank voice, “but the guy who brought me here didn’t even stay until I woke up. So I have to take the bus.” She looked down at herself with a miserable expression, “but who could blame him for sobering up and getting the hell out of dodge.”

“We’re driving.” He answered in a clipped voice, “so it was nice talking to you, lady, but-”

“You could come to town with us.” She interrupted, ignoring the glare it elicited from her companion, and smiling warmly. “No reason you should have to take the bus, if we’re all going the same direction, right?”

He sighed heavily, “I can think of plenty reasons, actually.”

“See? It’s no problem!” She ignored his words and rushed forward, linking her arm through Natasha’s and leading them to the dumpster area where a blue sedan was parked. “We’re happy for the company.”

Natasha smiled, almost feeling guilty for how easy it was to fool civilians. Almost.

 

**XXX**

 

 _“The kids just let some woman in their car, Spider.”_ Jones informed her through the com.

“For fuck’s sake.” She muttered, eyes still locked on Barton, who somehow appeared natural and normal, all the while utilizing every tactic to evade being tailed available. More than once, she had almost lost him, and was only further inhibited by the fact that she wasn’t wearing a disguise. He would recognize her familiar face immediately, and that would put her own motivations in jeopardy. Otherwise, as a pavement artist, she’d be having no problem at all. “It could be Widow. Tail them, but for the sake of your own damn lives, as well as mine, don’t get caught. I don’t think I have to tell you how competent she is.”

“ _Copy that_.” Yelena was not surprised by the note of fear in his voice, after all, displeasing their boss often ended one up in a body bag.

 _“Orders from Whitehall.”_ The voice was calm, clear, and took Yelena completely off guard. She had known Whitehall was serious about bringing the girl in, that she was important for his research, but Yelena had never expected him to bring the equivalent of a nuclear weapon to the table, and that was exactly what the owner of that cold voice was. A weapon of mass destruction. She couldn't help it, a shiver of pleasure and anticipation ran through ehr body at the sound. _“Cross off all SHIELD agents, bring the girl in at all costs.”_

If they had listened to her in the first place, and took the girl in the day before, all of this could have been avoided.

Not that it mattered. She had her orders. Her hand palmed the needle sheathed by her ankle. There was no need to make a spectacle with guns. Clean and quiet, just as she preferred. She couldn't say the same for the new member of their little party.

 

**XXX**

 

He should have seen it coming, really. There were few better than him. Few that could boast his skill.

Nevertheless, Clint Barton had made several errors from the beginning; they all had. The first mistake was figuring that whoever they were looking for weren't being tailed. Karp was, after all, the assassin, and so why would there be multiple enemies tailing the hacker? Foolish, rookie mistake. The second error was not taking the case nearly as seriously as he should have. It had always seemed more like a puzzle than a mission, and in that respect lacked the urgency of danger that kept people alert. The third, and final blunder was not demanding more answers from Fury on why the mission was so damn top secret. That alone should have kept Clint more on guard.

All of these thoughts rolled into his mind as he felt the sharp needle slide into the back of his neck, straight into his blood stream. He turned around, swinging with his right hook, while arming his left with a gun, and saying, “I’ve been hit. We’re compromised.”

His skin made contact, but he stumbled lightheaded and queasy.

As he fell toward the ground, the world spun, a crowd of people surrounded him in a dizzying spiral that, for whatever reason, centered around the impossible face of Natasha Romanoff. How did she find him so quickly? And why did he hear her voice over the comm, without her lips moving?

“Natasha….”

 

**XXX**

 

“It’s a shame to park such a pretty blue sedan by a dumpster,” Natasha made her voice very clear, so that Fury would know which car to investigate. “I really like Hondas- wow, and this one is totally out of my price range.”

Ward leveled the girl with an annoyed stare, a silent ‘I told you so.’ What he actually said was, “dad bought it before he got fired from his foreman position at the plant,” and then swung open the driver’s side door, tossed his duffel bag in the back, climbed in, and slammed the door shut after he was inside.

The girl sat in the back, leaving the front passenger door for Natasha. As she sat down inside, her eyes took in absolutely everything, categorizing it for use- either as weapon, or intel. Since, at the moment, weapons were not the priority, she focused on the latter. The vehicle was immaculately clean, his doing she would guess, and had no real identifying objects inside. No help there. She focused on their personalities instead.

At first glance, one would automatically assume that he was in command. A white, fit, teen male was prime alpha material; and with the forlorn looks his over-eager mouse of a companion was giving him, it wouldn’t be difficult to believe her to do whatever he asked of her, completely besotted.

However, their behavior suggested the more unlikelier of scenarios. If it had been up to Ward, Natasha would be on a bus, she hadn’t needed espionage training to figure _that_ out, as he made no effort to hide his displeasure. He was no brainless jock, nor was he just there as muscle. If anything, he was the risk assessor, keenly aware of their surroundings, always looking for threats. It was written plainly on his suspicious, angled features. Natasha was impressed by him, most kids his age were oblivious to everything but their immediate needs and wants. He was a cut above. If she had been responsible for their little “team,” she would have certainly made him captain.

Yet, he never made any real arguments, or effort to get his way, outside of noting that it was a bad idea. _She_ was one calling the shots.

How did _that_ work? It certainly wasn’t self-preservation, because evidently, the girl had no head for it. Smart, aware people didn’t pick up strangers in motel parking lots. The girl, she seemed relaxed, careless, and completely at home with talking to her, a stranger, with no regard for the danger that she could pose.

“We forgot to introduce ourselves.” The girl poked her head between them and stuck out her hand to shake Natasha’s. “I’m Skye Potter, and this is my brother, Earth Potter- just kidding!” She laughed easily at her own joke, and it was a sweet, innocent sound. “Not about my name, it _is_ Skye. His name is boring old Joey though.”

“I’m Jan Garber.”

“Oh, cool name. What’s it mean?”

“Gift from God.”

“Neat. Do you have a sister named Marsha?”

_“We’ve had no matches on the facial recognition. The car, however, is an issue. We ran the plates, and it came up as belonging to Cameron Pentola. No picture attached.”_

Natasha chuckled, “aren’t you a little young to know that show?”

“I caught the movie,” Skye responded with ease, “did you see the movie?” Beat. “What’s your favorite movie?”

Natasha wanted to relate Fury that his guy wasn’t really as good as Fury seemed to think he was then, instead she addressed the unending question machine seated just to her left; “Sleepless in Seattle.”

“Are you a Meg Ryan fan, or a Tom Hanks fan?”

The questions kept pouring out from what Natasha could only describe as an overexcited puppy, whose solitary redeeming quality was cuteness; a trait keeping it from being throttled by exasperated owners. Perhaps the girl had just irritated her way into being the one who made the calls.

“Both. They just have such chemistry.” Natasha answered with a friendly smile, and was about to ask a question of her own, but didn’t get the chance.

“Did you watch it with your sister?”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“Oh, I thought you said you did.” Skye continued relentlessly, “do you have any siblings?”

“No.”

“Lucky you. Family is just a big pain. Like this one here,” she motioned to her brother, “he’s just a big fuddy duddy, always running my fun. I bet he hates your favorite movie. Hey, Joey, how do you feel about You’ve Got Mail?”

There was a blue sedan, almost exactly like the Honda they were in, 3 cars back, that looked suspiciously like a tail.

“Sleepless in Seattle,” Natasha corrected absently, her mind going over the facts she had collected. Pentola. That meant Pot. Potter. Her mind zipped through connections, and word associations. Skye went straight to the movie for the Brady Bunch; instead of the TV show. 'The truth is a virus' came from a movie. Natasha, glanced up at the silent driver, who wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at Skye, and there was something strange about what she saw there. It was almost like he was marveling at her, like he had solved something that had been perplexing him for a good long while.

“Never watched either of them.”

“See?” She sighed, “do you see what I deal with?”

They turned. She waited. The sedan followed, but so did all the cars in front, and behind them.

Skye. Skye. Skye. Her name. There was a dot Natasha needed to connect it to, and it was just out of reach. Damn it.

“Pretty sure you’re not the one she’s pitying right now.” He teased.

Natasha noted that he became visibly relaxed. That was when she realized her very stupid mistake, and cursed herself a thousand times for it.

There was always one consistent ally her entire life, and that was people’s tendency to underestimate her. Yet, there she was, committing the same idiotic act that she had smugly faulted others for, and it was all starting to fall into place under closer scrutiny. Skye had sat in the back to keep an eye on her, which she had done the entire ride there. Her feigned mistakes in the conversation were traps, trying to catch Natasha in a lie; and had she not been trained to maintain cover, she easily could have slipped up. Skye was comfortable with strangers, because she was a damned orphan; strangers were all she really knew and that made her vulnerable her entire life- so reading people was almost certainly second-nature to her.

That had been Ward’s revelation too, he had never seen her in action before, Natasha guessed, He had in all likelihood been wondering how the hell this puppy-like child survived the foster system. It wasn't hard to detect Ward's tougher nature, he had the air of a survivor, of someone that was potentially very dangerous if he needed to be. For whatever reason, more than likely Clint's influence, she was glad of it suddenly. He was going to need that strength, and so would his partner in crime. Though she wasn't as helpless as she seemed, as he seemed to be realizing right before her, he was still the tougher of the two.

Clint was making her soft.

The car came to a halt in a very public parking lot of a police station, “well, here we are.” Skye announced cheerfully. They were surrounded by white cars with lights, and there were two men in uniforms directly beside where she parked. The streets were filled with pedestrians, cars, and worker-bees on their lunch breaks. Natasha heard rustling in the back, and noted that she was picking up his duffel bag, and her book bag. She opened the door, and stepped out in a hurry.

The car that had possibly been tailing them drove past. The driver looked like anybody else, just a normal, every-day guy. He didn’t even look at them as he kept going. Then again, that was usually the point.

Natasha finally made the connections that she needed to- just too late.

A name within a name.

Pentola. Cameron Pentola. For whatever reason, Grant Ward didn’t want to be Grant Ward anymore. Skye created him a new identity, and either she blackmailed him into driving with her, or he felt like he owed her. Natasha was leaning towards the second option; Skye didn’t seem the blackmailing type, and the way he looked at her bore no resentment.

Damn it all. How could she miss so many obvious connections? Was she slipping? There was no time for self-admonishment though, that would have to wait.

“Well, let me thank you for the lift.” Natasha tried, “I can buy you two some food.”

“No need.” Ward replied, exiting the car as Skye tossed him his bag, and he caught it. “We’ve got a friend who will feed us.”

Skye was nodding, “you can thank us by paying it forward, or maybe finding a boyfriend who isn’t a tool.”

  
Was Skye following his lead right then?Or had she simply changed her mind

Natasha knew she hadn’t slipped up. Not even a  trained professional could spot her ruses,let alone two runaways, no matter how impressive they were for a couple of kids. She knew not to push though-she’d just have to follow.

The two were walking _toward_ the police station. Ward with his duffel bag over his left shoulder, his right palm protectively on the small of Skye’s back. Her backpack was on her right shoulder, positioned in front of Natasha. The moment she registered the flash of a red dot on the girl's shoulder, instantly gone, Barton’s words cut through everything. _“I’ve been hit. We’re compromised.”_

Natasha instantly sprung into action; mind screaming for Barton helplessly as she instinctively reacted to the meaning of that dot. The force of her body hit Skye’s, and Ward’s, throwing them all against the ground, just as she realized that the dot hadn’t been meant for the girl at all. She related this all to Fury, to Hartley, to an already hit Barton. He was down. He was down. The words repeated over and over, leaving questions, fury, and terror in their wake.

The first shot hit her in the shoulder, and despite the protection beneath her disguise, the force of it still sent echoes of pain. She was trained to ignore that, and did. What she couldn’t ignore was her own stupidity and failure. This had been her mission, she was in charge, and Barton was paying the price for her incompetence. The second shot grazed the skin of her upper arm, but she barely felt that, as adrenaline mercifully swept through her; the perfect aid for this battle.

How had she not been prepared for this?

She rolled off the ground, still using her body as a shield for the two kids, who were trying to get away from her. At first glance, there was no assailant. A steely grip kept Skye’s wrist locked down, and Natasha instantly knew that Ward would stay because of her. Cover. They needed cover. _“I’m on my way.”_ Hartley’s voice cut into the exclamations of the two kids whom she was trying to protect. _“I’m closer to Barton’s location, than Romanoff’s.”_

 _“Head to him, Hartley.”_ That was Fury. “ _Barton, stay with us. Back up is headed your way. Romanoff, I’m sending back up now. Get out of there. Get those kids out of there.”_

Chaos was erupting around them.

The two officers by the car reacted first, one with gun drawn in the direction of where the bullet came from, using a vehicle for a shield; while the other was low to the ground as well, making his way towards them and using the cars as cover.

There was screaming, people running in different directions- and it all seemed like too much for a bullet no one should have noticed, and three people careening to the ground. Natasha cast a hunting look around, stopping at the picture in front of her, but having no time to be as horrified as she needed to be.

He had long, stringy hair, steel mask, full tactical gear; and a fucking cybernetic arm. The star, that red star on the side, was ominous and bright. He looked just as the ghost stories claimed he would. As she took it in, she spoke it all into the comm, knowing that it was beyond belief.

It was absolutely impossible. The Winter Soldier wasn't actually _real._

“What. The. Fuck.” Ward said, completely in shock. He was grasping for Skye, trying to pull her underneath him, like he could somehow just block all of it and keep her safe.

  
_"Natasha…”_

  
He used her first name. Her heart lurched.

Barton’s voice was weak, and Natasha felt that distraction keenly, but still managed to start pushing the kids to their original direction, feeling the urgency of Fury’s direction to get out of there. “Inside. Let’s get inside.” She whispered urgently to them.

The impossible man was simply _faster_ than any human had the right to be. He leapt, instantly behind them, swatting her with his metal limb, making her airborne before crashing to the side, as though swatting away a fly. Pain radiated through the ribcage that he made contact with. The air was gone from her lungs. She struggled to get back to her feet, eyes straining to keep focus on Skye and Ward.

Police were pouring from the station, shots were being fired, they ricocheted from his arm, embedded themselves in his clothing; and he ignored all of it.

Skye was running toward _her_ , away from _safety_ , like an idiot. Ward tried to grab at her to keep her from doing it, coming just short of his target, and winding up with her sweater in his arms instead of her.”Damnit, Skye!”

“Jan, Jan, are you okay?” Skye was frantic, terrified; her voice was sharp and high.

Natasha’s gun was in her hand; she fired past the girl at the start of the girl's sentence, to the monster coming at them. Her aim would have been true, right between the eyes, had he not used his arm to deflect it. Two more useless shots. Strings of silently screamed curse words that didn;t seem strong enough, filled Natasha's pounding head.

With his flesh arm, he grabbed the girl and snapped her backwards into his body, but to her credit, Skye tried to fight him, flailing about, and making herself a hard possession to keep hold of.

There were no more officers running towards them. The masses had started fleeing. It was the little things that made Natasha grateful right then. The fewer variables, the better off she was. She’d give her arm for higher ground though, and almost snickered at her own inside joke.

Skye kicked at him, screamed, and her elbow landed in his left eye. Ward came at him, yelling her name, only to be flung aside with even more ease than used with Natasha. His body was mashed against a police car, and he crumbled onto the ground, looking broken.

“GRANT!” It was Skye’s terrified scream. Her captor raised a gun, aiming it directly at Natasha’s head but the girl slammed her only free extremity against it, her head. It was flung from his hand outward, just as Natasha managed to gain enough momentum to use her hands to launch herself from the ground at him, legs first. She'd have gone for the neck, if the girl hadn’t been in the damn way. His torso was as hard as the concrete against her feet, and the force vibrated completely through her. He barely budged. She evaded his fist, which clumsily came at her, as his hostage continued her futile, meaningless lashing out. She screamed, and plead relentlessly, begging for her friend to wake up, for her captor to let her go to him.

Why wasn’t he incapacitating her? Natasha wondered, as she dodged another fist. Skye was a doll in his arms, but still a slight hindrance regardless. Knock her out, and the fight would be done. Natasha didn't stand a chance against him without that interference from Skye. It was an obvious choice, so why didn't he do it? Natasha spun to the right, evading a blow, then landed one of her own by using a leg sweep to knock him down with a thud. Those were flesh, hard with muscle, but still vulnerable. A weakness. Natasha pulled the knife from the waistband of her jeans, and thrust into his right calf, pulling downward, noticing unhappily that he made no pained sounds. In a swift movement, she pulled the knife from his body, one foot landing on his chest, the other his head; and sweeping her right arm out to grab Skye.

He yanked her back, and Skye let out a pained scream, kicking at him, while trying to grab onto Natasha’s arm to pull her left leg from his hand.

Even so, he was stronger than them both, and this time when he had the girl, he didn’t bother with anything else. He flipped her over his shoulder, and started retreating, quicker than any creature Natasha had ever seen.

She started after him immediately, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Ward was doing the same.

This was a suicide mission now; did the kid know that?

Even at full speed, she lost sight of the target though, and it took a moment for the boy to catch up with her. “Where…where is she?” He started past her, running again, then stopped, probably realizing that they could have gone in any direction. He spun around, eyes wild and panicked. He was bruised, and bloody, looking very much like he didn’t belong in the middle of the clean, crisp New England neighborhood they found themselves in.

Natasha sucked in a sharp breath.

Ward was bent over, heaving, body shaking with pain, adrenaline, and unadulterated misery.

“I lost Dragon. We need a full unit combing this area. What is Barton’s status?” It occurred to her then, that she had not heard a word from them for a while. They had cut her from communication, which was _not_ a good sign.

“ _MIA.”_ Came Hartley’s voice for the first time in a while, “ _His comm and tracker ended up on a garbage truck.”_

Natasha blew out her mouth, and tried to clear her mind of the immediate panic that was starting to cloud it.

She never got the chance.

A blow to the head did it for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm incredibly sorry this took such a long time to get out. It was a long chapter, and I had a ton of trouble with the Natasha/Grant/Skye scene, as well as the end fight. It's difficult, sometimes, to try and capture Natasha's voice, and action, obviously, isn't my strong suit writing-wise. I’m still not thrilled with it, but I figured that I probably never would be; and the kind folks reading this little tale deserved a new chapter. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the addition of The Winter Soldier. :) And I know that in CA2, Widow tells Cap she's already tangled with TWS, however, the events in this story take place previous to that run in.
> 
> Thank you so much for your kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, and especially your comments! I like hearing what people like/dislike, and try to tailor my writing to be better by using that commentary. You feed the muse, and definitely made my writer's block much less difficult to overcome than it would have been! So grateful.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which loyalties are questioned, and choices presented.

Grant hoped he made the right choice.

In the back of the ambulance, he sat next to a black woman dressed as a paramedic, but held herself with the sophistication of royalty. Her hair was perfectly coifed in three thick braids that were slicked back, reaching her shoulders; and despite the square-ness of her tan uniform, she seemed pointed inside it; giving her the appearance of a sheathed knife. Guessing her age would have been a neat trick, somewhere between early thirties, and ‘I’ve seen it all, I just moisturize well.’ The same could be said for the white female driver of the ambulance, though some grey poked out of her dark-brown locks, and she was considerably stockier in her police uniform.

The fourth member in transport was Jan, though Grant would consider himself a complete moron if he thought that was her real name. She was passed out in the gurney, bound to it with some kind of strange, modified looking pair of handcuffs on each of her wrists, and her ankles. He had seen the black woman inject the woman with something, and now he watched with horror as she slipped another needle inside her arm once more.

He reached to pull it off her, “you’re going to kill her!”

She darted out with her free hand, twisted his arm, and shoved him back into his seat. “This is The Black Widow, child.” Her voice matched her weapon-like appearance; piercing and chilled. “If she wakes up, she’ll take us all out, _while_ handcuffed to this gurney. I was only able to knock her out in the first place because of the damage she sustained from her earlier battle, and the distraction of losing one of her fellow agents.”

Agents. Robot arms. Black Widows. Grant didn’t have time to register all the insanity that was going on around him; he had one goal. Get Skye back. After that, he’d deal with the years of asking people: ‘what in the actual fuck?’

It was Skye, ultimately, that put him in the ambulance with the two women.

_“Marian, help me secure her. Scarlett, get the boy in the ambulance.” The woman paramedic barked out quickly as she slipped a needle into an unconscious Jan’s arm, while a female grabbed at Jan’s feet._

_Grant felt a hand on his arm, and caught himself staring into the eyes of the vendor from street fair, then later when he opened the police beat. That wiry build was deceiving, as his grip was strong and powerful. The man was now dressed as a paramedic, matching the black woman, only with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “What…what the hell? Uh. No. I’m not going anywhere with you.” He snatched his arm away, and started backing up, getting ready to sprint. The questions that stopped him were simple: where would he go to? How would that help him find Skye? He looked back to man that he recognized. “You’ve been watching us.”_

_The two older women were putting Jan into the ambulance, “we don’t have time for this.” The man who had grabbed his arm said with growing impatience, “Skye doesn’t have time for this.” He corrected, catching his eye so that he would understand his meaning. “We’re the people she was supposed to meet, okay? We’re the Merry Men.” When Grant didn’t respond, he reached into his bag and shoved Skye’s horrible sweater in his hands. “We’re her friends, dude. Now come on, because she just got abducted by some freak monster.”_

_“That wasn’t a monster.” The police-woman hopped out of the back of the ambulance. Her dark eyes swept over his body, deducing him quickly. She had the most average, unremarkable face that he had ever seen in his life, yet he instinctively knew that the contents of the book, didn’t match the cover. “That was an assassin called the Winter Soldier. Now get the fuck in the car before he takes Skye to a place we can’t get her back from.”_

The man hadn’t joined them in the ambulance, but Grant was to understand that they were meeting her somewhere later. “Why are we worried about her waking up? She was trying to save us from that guy.”

Grant was certain of that much, even if everything else was punctuated with large, terrifying question marks.

“She’s not the problem, not really.” The woman’s eyes swept over the girl pityingly, before coming back to Grant’s. “She’s a spy for a secret organization. The Strategic, Homeland, Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division- mostly called SHIELD, by the few who are privileged enough to know it’s existence. _They_ are the actual problem.”

Grant didn’t think he was hearing this woman correctly, otherwise he had just been told that the woman Skye let hitch a ride with them was some James Bond type, and Skye was actually a government secret. If he hadn’t seen that woman pull off fighting moves he couldn’t have even _imagined_ , he’d have labeled his current transporters _insane_. As it was, he thought, perhaps, he was the one going crazy. “And who are they?”

“Well, they started off here, in the US, run by our government, but they’re head by the World Security Council now. They’re supposed to be about protecting our world from far advanced technology- both local, and… _not_. ” Robbie answered easily, “they detect threats, and potential threats.”

“So this spy? What was her interest in me and Skye?”

“It’s in Skye.” The driver answered, tone muted. Grant didn’t meet the protective glance from the faux paramedic. “She’s special. I can’t get into it here. There’s no telling if the drugs we gave Widow actually work on her.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Grant wanted to know.”

“She’s special too.” Was the vague response.

“Hey, where are they headed?”

“The Highway.” Answered the driver, “how’s the patient, Robbie?”

She glanced at the monitors that they hooked Jan up to, “I don’t know- I think she’s still out.”

“I hope so.”

Grant’s eyebrows drew together, “Where are they headed? Who? Skye? Do you know where they are taking her?”

Robbie looked hesitant to answer, but was otherwise an unreadable human being. “Yes. Marian shot The Winter Soldier with a tracker. Quick thinking there.”

The driver shrugged off the compliment, “now we just need to figure out how that tracker is going to help us cross off the most efficient assassin _outside_ of the one that _we_ have shackled to a gurney. The one who could wake up _at any time_.”

Grim silence was the answer- unless the chaos in Grant’s mind counted as noise. His head was screaming arguments on how none of this made sense, how it couldn’t possibly be real; nevertheless, here he was, in a speeding ambulance with two strangers who claimed to know about a shadow organization, while the only person Grant knew truly cared about him was kidnapped by some sort of assassin with super strength, and a fucking. Robot. Arm.

“In other news, we have a tail.” Marian broke the outward silence.

Robbie reached down to the collar of her uniform, lowering her head slightly, “Hey Sherwood; we're going to need some discreet directions out of here; you copy?”

“ _Rightey-oh, fearless leader_.” Came a surprisingly loud response from the radio of the ambulance itself, the voice was distinctly feminine, and young sounding. “ _oh oops, wrong button_.” A child-like chuckle followed, and then Grant heard nothing more.

“Wait, which side do we think is following us? Those SHIELD people, or that assassin guy’s people?” Grant inquired, suddenly coming up with a plan of his own, “because if it’s the assassin people, then I’ll just stay behind. Maybe they’ll take me to her.”

Robbie’s frown failed to make creases in her face, a trait that she had in common with his mother. Of course, it was a joint trait among his mother’s friends too. He stared at her a bit longer, realizing what it meant. Then glanced over at the driver, also ageless- _Plastic surgery_ , he realizedthe “That’s the problem, kiddo. They’re on the same side. They just don’t realize it.” She told him somberly. She looked away, and gave a sad, slight shake of her head. “The whole organization is corrupt. We’ve been trying to gather enough convincing proof for years.”

Grant was having a difficult time trying to follow the story, having very little information. “So let me get this straight-”

“Turn left here.” Robbie interjected, then make a right, four blocks up, another right- try to lose the tail. And make your way back here, to Mulligan’s street. Okay?”

“Roger that.” Marian answered.

The ambulance made a tight turn, almost throwing Grant to the side; he grabbed the gurney with his free right hand, next to Jan- the Black Widow’s- arm, while his left still clung to Skye’s sweater. He could see now that Jan was in a disguise, clay peeling off the skin where blood had smeared against it. What did she really look like? He wondered absently. Who was she really? “So let me get this straight,” he started again, keeping his grip tight as another sharp turn was made. Tires squealed, the ambulance tilted, and his stomach lurched from it all. “SHIELD is a shadow organization formed by the government, to deal with weird stuff, like the guy who has Skye. But now people who don’t care about protection have somehow taken over. Like they are trying to poison it from the inside out?”

Marian was pushing the gurney to the other side of her, then peeling up what looked to be a sticker that blended perfectly with the floorof the vehicle; revealing a trap door beneath it.

“Smart kid.” Marian praised, spinning the wheel again.

Grant stiffened, and hunkered down, not to go careening sideways. This time, some of the machines in the ambulance went crashing to the ground. “And they all want Skye because she’s special? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never met anyone like her, she’s awesome; and a complete whiz when it comes to the computer. But- I mean, that doesn’t seem relevant to any of what you guys- um, ladies, are talking about.”

The vehicle came to an abrupt stop, just as Marian started to open the trap door, revealing an open manhole beneath it. Grant was smacked in the face with the disgusting odor of sewer. His stomach heaved, he gagged and turned his head away.

When he looked back- the world had shifted. The Black Widow was up, a gun in both hands, pointed at Robbie, and Marian. “Feel free to make a hasty exit ladies,” she smiled, “I’ll catch up later.”

Marian was taking his arm, pulling him with her.

“Nuh-uh. The kid stays with me.”

“He’ll be in danger.” Marian replied, shifting out of the seat and moving to be next to Robbie. Grant watched as the two women linked hands, and felt a sudden jolt of compassion for them both. He wasn’t sure who to believe, really, but that showing of intimacy was telling to him. “You’re in danger, Agent Romanoff.” It was almost a plea.

“You’re running out of time.” She told them curtly.

“I’ll stay. Go. Just go find Skye.” Grant told them.

Scared. He had never been so scared in his life, but not for himself. For Skye. That thing that had her was what nightmares were made of.

His eyes met Marian’s, and she gave a slight nod. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to save her, Grant. You have my word.”

Grant heard traffic approaching, as the women disappeared into the trap door below.

Jan- the Widow- Agent Romanoff- whoever the hell she was, handed him both guns, and started fastening the cuffs back onto her arms. “Close the trap door.” She commanded, “tell whoever comes in here that you got the guns off of those _guys_ , and they ran down the alley. You got me?”

“But-”

 _“Now._ ” She commanded through clenched teeth.

Grant nodded, and started to numbly obey.stomach heaved, he gagged and turned his head away.

 

XXX

 

As far as failures went, Izzy marked this one as the worst in a good, long time.

She ticked off the goals in her mind; find and bring in target, while keeping the entire mission covert, even from the organization that she worked for, and use the target to learn who Karp was working for, and why they were killing off gifteds.

 _Well_ , she thought, as her eyes rested on the television that was currently broadcasting a frantic businessman recounting the attack of a man who was part cyborg, _we did at least find the target._

She doubted Fury would enjoy her optimism.

The man was clad in a navy-blue suit that matched his silver-dollar wide eyes. His brown hair was receding, his stomach round, and his face shined brightly from sweat. He didn’t look like a mad man, or the kind people found easy to discredit. that was a shame, really. She wondered how the hell SHIELD was going to clean this one up.

The screen flickered, then went blank, and when it came back on it was a commercial. Izzy used the remote to flick the television off. That answered that question, she decided, setting it down on the in table beside her, and slumping into the chair.

Fury himself had brought her in immediately, and she was seated in a safe-house not far from the motel that they had originally started at, where the whole mess of a mission began. The director had revealed nothing, only casting her steely, unforgiving stares with his one eye.

It was a cheery place, and very homey. The walls of the living room that she was in were a pumpkin color, the carpeting sepia and shaggy. There was a brown leather sofa, against the back wall, facing the 40-inch television screen, on an oak stand with shelves around it holding countless DVDs and VHS tapes, underneath it, a pair of doors that hid the DVD and VCR player, as well as some kind of gaming system. Adjacent to the couch, slightly angled towards the television, was a matching recliner, and then to the right of the couch, also pointed toward the screen, was a love seat. All were adorned with tan crocheted blankets, and decorative pillows.

The walls, however, were a dead give-way to who often stayed at this particular safe-house. There were two mounted posters on the wall, both were of Captain America.

One was a vintage WW2 propaganda poster, urging civilians to buy bonds. The Captain was smiling in his mask, the outline of his muscles showing through his uniform as women clad in red, white and blue all grinned behind him. The second was a black and white print of the man himself, Steve Rogers, posing with fellow howling commandos, and Peggy Carter, after the daring rescue that _earned_ him his place as a hero.

For the first time since Clint Barton said Natasha’s name, and Izzy knew things were going south, she smiled. Agent Coulson.

He was a good man, despite being a bit stodgy for her tastes. She had always appreciated his little quirks, and was usually the first to defend him among the ranks of those who found his hero-worship of Captain America hokey, or childish. In a world where that kind of genuine love of goodness was often blacked out with lies and secrets, it was refreshing. The smile faded, and her positive thoughts quickly dissipated through the lens of a very grim reality.

So there she sat, alone, miserable in her own thoughts, going over every detail, trying to ascertain what mistakes were made, how they could have been prevented, so that in the future she could do a better job. Striving towards perfection was always her goal.

The door opened, and Izzy was on her feet, gun in her palm. She dropped it back to her side at the sight of Agent Melinda May, in full tactical gear. “Finally.” Izzy said, with a sigh, “some good news.”

Melinda smiled at her a little, but it didn’t reach eyes devoid of their usual mischievous glint. “Hey Izzy.” She closed the door behind her, blocking out the darkness of the tunnel it took to enter the underground home-away-from-home.

“What’s going on? No one’s told me anything since I got forced down here.”

Melinda grimaced, “Fury has Garrett and his team searching for Barton and Romanoff.” She responded, “Hill and Klein tried to bring in Karp, but he vanished into thin air.”

“What do you think the chances are of getting Barton and Romanoff back?” Izzy sheathed her gun, and regarded her colleague and friend thoughtfully. Izzy was glad Fury brought Melinda and Garrett in. They were the kind of agents who got the job done.

However, she wondered if meant that they were following all SHIELD protocols. Was this mission going on the books? She couldn’t practically ask Melinda, because it was impossible to know what Fury had actually told her.

“Fury doesn’t think it looks good.”

“I didn’t ask what Fury thought,” Izzy responded pointedly, “I wanted your opinion.”

Melinda’s head raised a little, the glint in her eyes returning. “I never bet against that team.”

“Good.” Izzy gave her a nod, feeling better. “So what’s up? Why have I been locked down here, forced into uselessness?”

Melinda arched a brow, “Fury doesn’t want anyone to know you’re on this mission.”

Processing that was quite a feat, and for a moment she knew her expression was probably akin to that of a deer about to be hit by a car. This felt different than just having a mission be off the books, they could claim ignorance, there was a glitch and their paperwork got lost in cyberspace. There were excuses that they could use to escape serious penalty from the Council.

This was an entirely different animal. If they were caught, that was it. End of the line.

SHIELD traitors were not treated kindly.

“Why?” She wasn’t usually the asking questions type, but in this particular case, an exception had to be made.

Melinda’s expression was carefully controlled, “I don’t know. Fury’s orders.”

“Agent May, I want you to think about what Fury is asking us to do.”

A slight nod indicated that she already had, at length. There was no need to elaborate, though if there was Melinda most likely had been silent regardless.

Two of their best agents were missing, possibly dead; but if there was a chance to get them back, Izzy knew that she would take it. Of everyone in SHIELD, she trusted Fury above them all. He was smart, and true to his goals, even if sometimes that paths it took to reach them were less than savory. “Okay. What do we do first?”

Melinda looked relieved, and Izzy didn’t want to know what her orders were if Izzy had refused the mission. Memory wipes were not a foreign concept to her.

“We report to Fury for orders.”

 

XXX

Missing did not necessarily mean dead.

It was differentiation that Natasha clung to, a tenuous thread of hope, acting as a damned life-line, because if he _were_ dead, if he _were_ gone…

The thought was banished immediately.

 _This is why you never get attached._ That reproachful voice in her mind felt like acid against thoughts of Clint, crisping them, and hardening them in self-loathing. She tried to reason that he was just one person, and an agent at that. It wasn’t as though he were family, or even something more than that. Clint was just her partner…

Then why exactly had she let him suck her into an organization that, according to her previous captors, were no longer acting as the Guardian Angels that Clint claimed them to be? There was no reasonable explanation. The rules of her trade were easy- don’t get killed. The easiest ways to get killed? Form attachments, believe in causes, trust others. And she had let Clint lead her into all three traps- only to disappear when she needed him most.

None of that answered why though.

Natasha surveyed the agents humming around the ambulance, looking in all the wrong directions for those they pursued. Two agents had already gone down the alley, where Grant Ward had directed them initially. He had done exactly as she had as she had asked, even with two guns trained on him, while Natasha was being released from her shackles, and acting like she was dizzy from the drugs. The truth was that she had only been out for a few minutes- and had a high tolerance for all sedatives, one of ther many gifts provided by the creepy KGB doctors who had experimented on her.

They were the enemy; she had no reason to believe their words- unless one understood that paranoia was a healthy tool. Natasha did, it was a core tool of her trade.

Barton would have told her that their claims were impossible, then again, he had also thought stumbling onto their targets immediately out of the gate was impossible, that wiping out the existence of some ordinary girl was impossible, and the existence of the Winter Soldier was impossible too. A lot of pretty impossible things were happening at the moment. Impossible was becoming strangely, freakishly possible.

So who did she trust to help her find Barton, if not SHIELD?

There was only one person in her immediate vicinity whose intentions she was almost 100% certain of.

She glanced over at the boy, who was sitting on the lip of one of SHIELD’s black sedans; hands shackled as he still grasped the sweater of his lost friend as if letting it go, meant letting her go. He was terrified, not just for her, but for himself too- yet none of that registered on his countenance. A poker face of that kind usually took a great deal of training. She wondered who his teacher was- or had it simply been life in general.

He’d be of a little help though.

There was, of course, John Garrett- but there had been a reason she didn’t want him on her team from the beginning. Her distaste of him was immediate. They met when Barton first brought her in. His interrogation styles were thorough, and he played the good cop to Victoria Hand’s bad one. Even then, with his convoluted stories, and charismatic nature; Natasha had been leery of him. The feeling never dissipated. He was out.

There was his second, North, a good soldier who followed orders and did everything he was told. Definitely out.

No one in the vicinity was going to be of any aid whatsoever.

Hartley?

No. She was SHIELD through and through.

Natasha sighed heavily.

She was on her own.

 

XXX

 

Skye had no idea where she was. A hood had been placed over her head, three streets away from where she had witnessed Grant get tossed into a car, like he weighed absolutely nothing.

Then she had been forced, while she screamed until her voice was hoarse, and punched until her arms were sore, into a cage. Or at least, that was what it felt like. Even without the hood, the world was pitch black, and all she could do was feel around. Her hands found bars so close together that her hand couldn't fit through the spaces.

She tried to focus on what she saw during the firefight. Had Grant been breathing? She swore that she had seen his chest rise and fall; but maybe that had just been hope playing tricks on her mind.

Muscles that should have been screaming at her in torment from injuries sustained, and efforts made to free herself, were silenced by what Skye could, at most, guess was shock. It was a vague concept to her, seen in action movies when people weren’t reacting the way that they should, when a character distanced themselves from their own state of being. That was how she felt- like she was outside of herself, looking in. However, she never recalled shock being quite so helpful in the movies. Usually, the character just sat there, numb. Her mind was operating quickly, and efficiently. Her hands adroitly moving within the blackness to feel around for any kind of opening or tool to use for escape, while she went over everything in her life that could have led to this moment.

She only knew a few things, and she listed them.

_I am alive._

_They took me, not a Senator’s son._

So it was her. For whatever reason, the target was her.

But she was entirely, disgustingly ordinary, not at all special or cool like the movie characters she worshiped. No one paid her much mind throughout life, and she was so easily discarded and disregarded that family after family traded her in like a car they had bought, which didn’t quite measure up to what they expected or desired.

_I’m a hacker._

That was unique, at least; and she had done her fair share of messing with governments, banks, and other powerful institutions.

Even so, Miles, and the MerryMen, they were all far more adept at it than she was.

_Maybe they are going to use me to find them._

That was alarming. Especially since whoever had her seemed to take no issue with violence as means to an end. Would they torture her? Her stomach lurched. She wasn’t strong enough to withstand torture, and she knew where Miles lived.

The sound of doors opening pierced her veneer of calmness with pure, unalloyed terror. Immediately her hand went to her eyes to guard from blinding light- but only a hint of it came through, just enough for her to catch the body of a business man slumped upwards in a cage neighboring the one she was in. Was he breathing? She couldn’t tell in the darkness.

The monster jumped in front of her cage, pressing his palm against the flat part of front, until a mechanical releasing sound was made. “Skye.”

His voice was surprisingly human, and not at all muffled by the steel mask that covered his mouth.

“Did I hurt you?”

Her chest rose and fell rapidly at the question that made no sense to her. He was dimly lit, and she couldn’t see past him to what was outside. He stood between her captivity, and her freedom; looking indomitable and terrifying. His hair was knotted and greasy, hanging in strings around his face, half-hidden by a mask, the top covered in black make-up to shadow his features. Blue eyes that she expected to be glaciers, but were far from it, they looked like the summer sky instead.

Her mouth was dry, throat sore, but she spoke anyway. “You hurt my friend.” The hoarse voice belonged to her, but the only reason she registered that fact was because the words had originally been in her head. It came out considerably stronger, and steadier, than anything she thought she could have managed.

"He is fine. I’m familiar with the amount of force needed to permanently harm one of his size.”

Skye glanced at the limp man. “And him?”

“He was an instrument of chaos.” He outstretched a hand to her, “an obstacle in the battle for the greater good.”

When she didn’t take his hand, he dropped it, and stepped back. It allowed her insight into the world behind him. It looked like a parking garage. There were exits to parking garage, but Skye knew that there was no way past her captor. “My friend wasn’t an obstacle.”

He closed his eyes, then reopened them, “he was in the way of obtaining you.”

“Me.” The word was flat. How was she so calm? She barely recognized herself in this situation. She was the girl who couldn’t even ask her crush in the 7th grade to the school dance; still here she was, caged, having witnessed a firefight, kidnapped by the T-800; and now she was suddenly channeling the brave heroine? What were the odds? No. A better question came to the forefront of her mind. _What would Sarah Connor do?_ Maybe hysteria had a funny way of revealing itself. “Why would anyone need me?”

“You’re special.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the entire world. “I was sent to protect you from people who would use you for anarchy,” he cast a disgusted side-eye to the businessman who hadn’t moved a muscle. Skye was almost certain that he was dead; but then why bother putting him in a cage?

“Come with me if you want to live,” she said the line dryly to herself. “This is not the movie I wanted my life to turn into, I was really kind of hoping for something with a John Hughes flavor to it.” Despite the calmness of her words, tears started to spill down her cheeks, as fear began to corner her. She gulped some air, and sank onto her knees, holding herself tightly.

The air of sarcasm and strength started to dissipate around her, and she was very, very frightened. Who was she kidding? She was no Sarah Connor; fighting anything off was a laughable concept. She wished Grant was there with her, and immediately hated herself for it; because it would mean that he was in danger too. "Can you please just let me go?"

Hard coolness touched her chin, raising her chin up to look into compassionate blue eyes. “Don’t cry,” he told her, “you are safe. Your life will now have meaning. You will make order out of chaos. We will do so together."

“Who are you?” The question was timid, and she recognized it immediately as her own, how it should have been from the beginning.

“A soldier.”

She shook her head slightly, “no. I mean your name. What’s your name?”

His eyes clouded with confusion, as though he didn’t quite understand the question. “I….don’t remember.” He finally said, “I was found, _saved_ , and before that moment, there was nothing. Those who saved me, they gave my life meaning. I protect this world, and now you will too.”

“But…these people…they aren’t nice. Nice people would tell you about your past. Wouldn’t they?”

“They told me I would not want to know. I was not a good man. They gave me goodness. Rightness. Order. They gave me a home, and a purpose.”

XXX

 _“So how long are you keeping him out of stasis?”_ Alexander Pierce demanded with an authority that he believed to be his, amusing Werner Reinhardt, as most foolish power hungry men did. They wished to be worshiped, and obeyed, with no understanding that they would never know what true power was. “ _I was told, specifically, that his programming would deteriorate._ ”

“Ah.” Werner responded, “you were told by inferior scientists. I worked with the programmer himself, Mr. Pierce, and understand what their feeble minds never can- that discovery requires experimentation.”

_“So you’re willing to experiment with the best weapon our organization has to offer?”_

“In order to improve upon his use, and create another weapon, that could possibly be superior? I would hope that a man of your intellect would already have answered that inquiry- ah, but yes, I must have overestimated your intelligence and usefulness. As we would not have found The Winter Soldier’s presence at all imperative had you kept your operatives under control. “

“ _Fury was operating outside of SHIELD_.”

“Ah yes, excuses.” Werner retorted in the calm easy tone that he rarely broke from. “I doubt they will serve you well; especially considering the Soldier was under your charge, and your men failed to solve the issue of his instability. I brought this to the attention of your superiors, and offered a potential solution. An experiment, if you will.”

“ _And what is that_?” There was an edge to his voice. “ _We used your tools for compliance."_

For a smart man, he was rather an idiot, Werner decided. “What every soldier truly needs.”

 _“We gave him a purpose. He’s protecting the world from chaos.”_ There was a long pause, “ _You don’t have an answer, because there isn’t one. You used that excuse to sweet talk your way into getting what you want. She’s just a little girl_.”

“Appearances can be deceiving, no? Her mother possessed a gift beyond measure, it will be interesting to learn what she has to offer us.” Interesting indeed, and a smile curled the ends of his lips. It was his chance to rectify a mistake made so many years before, when he had allowed himself to be drunk on his own power. Back then he had put this girl’s mother in a cage, kept her there, and later tore her apart to attain her eternal youth. Since that event, he had learned how much more fulfilling it was to have a willing participant, and was now given the precious time and resources necessary to facilitate that. Besides, the girl was of little use without the obelisk, which eluded him.

From the conversations that Yelena had sent him, it was obvious that the girl needed somewhere to belong. He could give her the family that she yearned for, and replace the friend that seemed to open up her need to nurture.

“She is the future, Mr. Pierce. I am certain you’ll recognize that in time. Now, tell me, the obelisk. Have you located it?”

_“No.”_

Another failure. It was too bad that such a useless chess piece was put into such an opportune position; or he would have sacrificed it long before. “Until now it was not a priority,” Werner excused, “however, with the girl in our custody, it is now paramount. Second only to Arnim’s demands, of course.” Werner knew the name drop would serve him well.

_“I’ll find it.”_

Werner laid the phone down, and watched the two figures on his screen with interest. The scene of a little girl, and Frankenstein’s monster was turning out to be a compelling one, despite his earlier reservations. Behind him Sunil Bakshi spoke, struggling to maintain the accent that Daniel himself had coached out of him. “Looks like that doctor Garrett turned you onto was correct in his profiling of the girl.”

Bakshi was proving to be an excellent second-in-command. He had a scientific mind, without the training, and once loyal, never wavered. His amorous nature towards Werner had been the inspiration behind this little experiment he was now conducting; without him, and without the psychiatrist that would have lingered low in the ranks, wasting his potential until Garrett pointed him out, Werner would have simply captured Skye, tossed her in a box like her mother, and periodically cut her open to see how she ticked.

It would have been a waste, for he had done the same with her mother and learned nothing besides how to transfer her gift to himself. While that was hardly to be calculated as a loss, it had provided one gain, instead of a possible many.

 _“But…these people…they aren’t nice. Nice people would tell you about your past. Wouldn’t they?”_ She questioned.

_“They told me I would not want to know. I was not a good man.”_

“Hm.” Was Werner’s response to Skye’s questioning of this man’s past, ignoring the rest of the Soldier’s words.

 _“Well, wouldn’t they at least give you a name?”_ Skye inquired, doubtfully. She reached up to his face, hands on either side of his steel mask, fingers searching for a way to release it. The piece came off in her hands, and she was staring deeply at his face. _“You look so familiar.”_

“And you were correct in your summation of our Soldier. I commend your input into the situation, Mr. Bakshi. As a soldier yourself, you were able to understand aspects of him that a scientist would simply not be able to have garnered on his own. You’re proving to be quite an asset.” He nodded at the screen.

_“I don’t see how that would be possible.”_

_“I don’t mean like a friend or anything, but like…I’ve seen you. I could swear it."_

Werner’s attention to the screen was only peripheral. After all, he could replay the tape later when his mind was sharp and focused on it.

“Thank you, Dr. Whitehall.” Bakshi replied, warmed by the praise, as Werner knew he would be. Werner did not even need to turn around to see the adulation in the man’s face. “I do not understand how Pierce couldn’t see the problem, or any of the doctors working on him, for that matter. I mean, having a purpose is one thing- but it’s so abstract. From what we know of Barnes, he had a strong protective instinct over the little guy- and you don’t get much smaller than her. Every case of your brainwashing has had that common aspect- allegiance to someone. And the girl? She needed to replace that friend of hers, and who better than him? The man who truly believes in his cause?"

Werner let the young man boast, despite already having all the information just spilled at his feet. Bakshi needed to feel important.

“And she….” He shook his head in disbelief at his fortune, at how she had just fallen into his lap- like mother, like daughter, he supposed. “Oh the things I can learn from her. The possibilities of her allegiance are endless. I could do more than harvest her organs, I could use her DNA to grow new ones. Perhaps she is the critical element needed to stabilize our issues in the Centipede program, her mother’s blood had regenerative properties after all. Moreover, If the gift was passed from mother, to daughter; will it be passed to her children as well?” He stood, overwhelmed by the prospects before him, yet outwardly was as calm as still waters. “We not only have her, but the possibility of her children, Mr. Bakshi.”

The Soldier advanced towards her, and she shot to her feet, and flattened herself against the back of the cage. _“I scare you. I understand. It has been a long time since I've spoken to a little girl, and I must look like a monster to you."_

She glanced at the mask in her hands, then back at him. slowly, defiantly, she stepped forward and handed him the mask. He was on one knee in front of her, like a knight before a queen. The image brought a thrill to Werner; the chess pieces could not have been more compliant if he had programmed them to do all of this himself. Of course, he had programmed the soldier to be slightly softer with the girl, but he had not expected this little gem. _"I am not a little girl- and I don't think you look like a monster. You kidnapped me, you know, and hurt my friend. You'll excuse me if I don't jump into...uh....arms."_ She made a face _._

_"I was protecting you, and your friend. Him being around you puts him in danger. Your special, Skye, and because of that people want to hurt you, and not just you, but the people around you; like your friend. Those people won't hurt him now, because he obviously has no idea where you are."_

_"People? What people?"_ She asked sharply.

_"They call themselves SHIELD."_

XXX

Luck was on John Garrett’s side.

Fury had debriefed him in on Romanoff’s mission just in time to have John’s most trusted man, Agent North, suggest the very motel that the kids were using to clean up in. If questioned, North had a perfectly excellent reason for suggesting it, having grown up in the area, and it wouldn’t be traced back to Garret; by either SHIELD, or HYDRA.

The girl was taken by Alexander Pierce’s toy soldier; ordered by Whitehall- which would keep the two HYDRA powerhouses at odds, because John doubted that the good doctor had even bothered asking for permission to use Pierce’s favorite assassin. Playing superiors against each other to get what he wanted was an old trick, but it always worked in his favor, no matter the agency.

Barton was missing, most likely dead, which would keep Romanoff busy, and out of his way.

Meanwhile SHIELD had a quandary on their hands; a Senator’s son, who knew too much. They couldn’t release him back to his parents; he was filled to the brim with classified information. They couldn’t turn him into an agent just yet; he was too young for operations; which was the only real fit the boy would have. John would be more than happy to supply a suitable solution for their problem.

While barking orders to his men, charming civilian into going away, and debriefing Romanoff, who had screwed up her mission beyond belief and pissed Fury off to no end, John kept a side-eye on his prize, Grant Ward.

It would have been ideal if he had gotten to the kid before he met the little girl. His attachment was obvious in the way he clung to the sweater that Romanoff claimed was Skye’s. Outside of that though, he was perfect. The kid hadn’t breathed a word of information to anyone about her, despite interrogation, and his face was carefully neutral. The makings of a perfect soldier were in that boy.

Grant was at such an impressionable age, made even tenderer by abuse and neglect by a vicious mother, and a useless father. A strong, paternal guiding force could effortlessly turn natural ability into unstoppable skill, and that devotion he had for Skye could smoothly be transferred into undying loyalty to that hand. John smiled warmly as he approached the teen, knowing just what to say.

“Grant Ward, I’m Agent John Garrett.” He reached out to shake the kid’s cuffed hand, but he didn’t respond. The boy’s impenetrable gaze met his unwaveringly. Defiance. Anger. John dropped his hand to his side, “I’m the man who searched that car of yours- found some interesting things in that trunk.”

Nothing. Not even a flicker across his face.

“I discarded it.” John told him easily, “no need to complicate things for you, or your friend; that is if they find her.” John continued, ticking the list off of manipulation tactics in his head. Do him a favor, next ingrain doubt in his head about SHIELD, and their motives. “The man who has her is dangerous, and it’s become a high-risk situation.” John made a tsking noise, and tilted his head to the side; “but you didn’t seem to care about that risk, did you?"

"Why are they wasting time with all of this? Shouldn't they be looking for Skye? I mean, you guys are like CIA or something, right?"There was an edge to his voice that John favored.

"Like I said," John returned, inserting displeasure in his voice, "the man who has her is dangerous, it's risky for them to go after her."

"Then let me."

John grinned, "I like you, kid. You've got guts."Grant didn't smile, though John sensed a softening in him. "That was quite some daring rescue you tried to pull.And saving Romanoff?Well, that’s pretty impressive;and I don’t impress easily.”

Grant raised a brow, "impressed enough to help me find my friend?"

John shook his head, wishing like hell that girl didn't even exist. The kid was like a damn dog with a bone.

"You won't be doing her any favors, getting yourself killed, which is what will happen if you go after her. Do you think she would want you to get hurt?" Grant stared back blankly, but John knew that he was debating it internally, he bent down and started to remove his cuffs. John tossed them from his right hand, to his left. "I tell you what, if you come with me now, I promise to do everything I can to reunite you with your friend, okay?"

Grant rubbed at his free wrists, looking doubtful, but the resistance was evaporating under John's coaxing. "Why? Why would you do that for me?"

Ah, yes. Just the key he was looking for- distrust. "Good question. See, I knew you were smart. Well, I'm not going to lie to you, I am going to need something in return. But it'll be easy, and totally worth getting your friend back." John tilted his head to the side, eyes gleaming. "And you do want her back, don’t you?”

The kid’s features shifted noticeably, and John knew he had him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make you three promises, because I don't actually enjoy putting my own characters in fanfiction, and only do it when the plot necessitates it.  
> 1\. One of the "MerryMen" is not an original character  
> 2\. Another of the "MerryMen" is directly related to a SHIELD character  
> 3\. None of the "MerryMen" are going to be core characters, but they do lead to another character from the MCU making a cameo ;)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, this Melinda May is before her transformation into the Cavalry.
> 
> As always, I want to thank you all for your amazing feedback- I broke 100 kudos, and I'm totally psyched about that! So very cool! And the comments have been so helpful, and fantastic! I can't thank you enough :) It means so much to me, especially since I thought I would only be writing for myself, and my friend. I never expected such a lovely response.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which "going rogue" becomes a trend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest, and sincerest apologies for this taking such a long time to be posted. There have been some dramatic changes in my personal life, and they have taken a toll on me emotionally. I'm afraid it gave me a nasty case of writer's block. You've all been so generous with your comments, kudos, bookmarks, and subscriptions that I feel like a total heel for the unplanned hiatus. So sorry!
> 
> Also, when I was talking about this story with a friend, she made a suggestion (which you'll find out about after the chapter, as I need you to weigh in on a decision I have to make) and it left me with some questions about my writing. 
> 
>  
> 
> Be forewarned that there is no POV from either Skye, or Ward in this chapter, and it's VERY heavy on the Natasha POV, which was unavoidable, because this was a real crossroads for the character. However, Skyeward, and their connection, is still very prominently displayed (if I did my job correctly, anyway). 
> 
> Well, I really hope that you like it, and as always, please let me know what you think!

**Chapter 8**

 

After Natasha had made her decision, she did not falter; she did not second guess it; she did not ponder other options. Instead, she charted her course, and moved forward.

She was alone, but not without resources.

Every SHIELD vehicle there was equipped with weaponry, communication devices, and depending on the agent’s tastes, different kinds of equipment. First, she did a head count. Which agent would have the most useful resources? Her mind tallied their behaviors, histories, and skills quickly before deciding on whose vehicle was worth stealing.

She zeroed in on Agent Garrett, who was cozying himself up to the next matter-at-hand.

Grant Ward.

He was the link to Skye, and to the organization, or whatever it was, that had shot a tracker into the Winter Soldier. The kid wasn’t useless; she had deduced that much already, but he was still a risk. Her mind calculated the pros and cons; the deciding factor was Barton. If Natasha left some 17-year-old kid in a potentially corrupt organization, he’d be livid.

She walked over slowly, allowing time to hear what John was saying to the boy before interrupting. “I am going to need something in return. But it'll be easy, and totally worth getting your friend back. And you do want her back, don’t you?” His tone was confident, flavored with a flamboyance that gave him that trademark charisma everyone seemed to succumb to.

“Agent Garrett.” Natasha interjected voice smooth and casual as she approached. Grant looked at her, eyes widening considerably at her appearance. She had stripped off her costume to reveal tactical gear underneath, tight enough to have fit under her disguise, making it accent every curve; and the clay that had morphed her features was cleaned off, leaving her au naturale. Natasha was not unaware of how her looks affected men, especially hormonal teens. It was unfair of her to use it to manipulate him; but he’d have to learn that life wasn’t fair, just as she had. “Grant,” she greeted, turning half her mouth up into a smile that could easily be taken for flirting. “I’m here to take you in to the big boss man. But no worries, I’ll protect you.” She slowly moved her gaze to Garrett, as if not wanting to drag it away from him. “I can take it from here.”

“It’s your opp, Romanoff. I can take the kid while you run things, it’s really no problem.”

Natasha smiled sweetly, wondering exactly what it was John Garrett, prized SHIELD specialist, wanted from a scared kid who only wanted his friend back. “I’ve been called in, might as well save everyone else a trip. Fury said you’re in charge.”

A blatant lie, but he’d buy it. Hubris tended to be the weakness of many.

He didn’t miss a beat, “so what do you think they’re going to do? We can’t send him back to his family.”

This seemed to interest Ward, breaking his stoicism to raise an eyebrow.

“I don’t pretend to know what Fury will, or won’t do,” she gave him a helpless shrug, “we both know it’s out of our hands, right? So point me in the direction of their belongings that you collected from the police station, and we’ll be on our way.”

XXX

He could never remember protecting anyone.

His mind was a collage of tiny, half-moments, blended together in a stream of nonsense- but not one of those flashes did he save a life Always. Always he was snuffing them out. There was blood, splintering bones, tearing muscle, blank, staring eyes that would never see again…

Never this. Never a scared, curious little girl who blinked, who breathed, who reached out to touch metal with warm, pink fingertips, and relentlessly questioned everything he had ever known.

“But why is SHIELD the enemy?”

“Why didn’t they give you a name?”

“Who were you, before you became this?”

“Are you sure my friend is alive?”

“What do you do when you aren’t working for them?”

“Don’t you have any friend or family??”

“What is it your bosses want?”

“If SHIELD is evil, and they have my friend, shouldn’t we go help him?”

“What does SHIELD want?”

“What do I have to do with any of this?”

“I’ll go with you; I'll do whatever any of you want, but could we please just make sure my friend is okay?”

He had answers for nothing, and it vexed him in a way he had never known. Worse, somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt that these were debates that he should have been having with himself already, but somehow he never conjured them, or even had the fraction of a thought to wonder about any of it. His ward was getting restless, and agitated from the lack of explanations, and he found himself growing impatient as well.

Not with her though. She never asked him in accusation, or anger. The array of emotions she displayed were so foreign a concept that he had no name for them, no memory of what they could be. They lacked the sharpness, frigidness, intensity and imputation that he could register and compute. Something ancient stirred inside him, a sentiment he knew he should be able to place, yet couldn’t. At once his vocabulary felt very limited.

Her determination to find the boy he had taken her from appeared relentless and familiar; it superseded the fear that he knew ensconced her, and drove her interrogation. Perhaps he too felt a similar brand of kinship for someone, but was it conceivable that someone returned it? Could that be the birthplace of these nameless emotions inside him?

“P-please.” She whispered, “if you just let me go, then I-I can find him, okay? I- I just- please. Please let me go.”

He shook his head, “I can’t. You wouldn’t be safe.” The words loosed from his tongue just as they sprang into his mind, no forethought put into them whatsoever, as so many had before. They continued relentlessly, defying his own personal desire to submit to her wishes; “you’re special, like me. People will hunt you down for that, and kill you, like they did your mother.”

“M-my mother?” The word quivered, and her already large eyes became impossibly larger. Before she spoke next, there was a sharp intake of breath, “she’s dead?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t keep the sorrow from his voice. The tale the doctor conveyed before sending him on this mission was still fresh in his mind. Doctor Whitehall, not the commanding officer he was used to, not a warrior at all; perhaps that was why his mission, just this once, felt bloodless and clean. “I’m sorry. The people that the man,” he gestured to their unconscious companion, “works for; they killed her.”

He tried, with no success to picture his own mother, knowing that the desire would summon no image, for it never had before. In her place was a chasm, ugly and black that was soon filled with images of mothers, dead by his hand- mouths open from screaming- now silenced, blood dripping down a forehead- past unseeing eyes, lifeless bodies on the ground- crooked from the broken spine inside them. He looked elsewhere, trying to blink away the images that threatened to undo him.

They were enemies. Bad people.

Bad people. They had to die.

His chest began to heave, he could feel panic closing in Flickers became full-motion recollections. Eyes bulging as his hands surrounded her throat, squeezing and squeezing as she thrashed about in a futile endeavor to save herself. Only one arm felt it; only part of him understood it, what that meant.

From the corner of his vision, he caught Skye's hand curling over his mechanical limb, undaunted by the lack of flesh. When he caught her eyes, she stared back unflinchingly. His mind eased, the partial-recollections ebbed, and he was firmly in the present. The wholeness of that gave him a firmer cognitive footing; “are you okay?”

He had just told her that her own mother was dead, and here she was, tearfully checking on his emotional status. _Are you okay?_

No one had ever asked before.

Was he okay?

Did he know what okay was?

His mind began to feel twitchy again, like a broken compass trying to point north, but not quite grasping the location. The needle swished back and forth, aimlessly, frustratingly passing its target each time. He shook his head, brow wrinkled, looking from side to side at the cold, metallic walls of the van they were in, the cage bars blurring the faster his head moved. Orders.

His tongue flicked over his lips as he sought for control over his mind- but oh, how it fought him!

_“Protect the girl. Bring her to me.”_

“I have to take you to him.”

“Take me to who?” She asked, her voice wobbling slightly.

He inhaled sharply, the orders were repeating again and again, crying piercingly inside his skull. Why? Why was it so loud? So painful? So repetitive? His mouth twisted as he looked at her, unmoved by the sound. "You can't hear it? Why can't you hear it?" But he knew. He knew why. This misery was his own to bear. “Oh God- make it stop.” He collapsed to his knees, hands over his ears, fingers tearing into his hair. 

XXX

 

Rapt fascination looped Yelena’s mind in its web as she watched their toy soldier unravel at the feet of a wispy child, barely capable of fighting off an angry kitten. The doctor beside her, an emaciated creature with lifeless eyes, just like his father's, glistened with nervous sweat, as he watched his embarrassing failure unfold on the screen positioned in the middle of the dash. It had partly been his testimony that swayed Whitehall into taking Pierce’s toy soldier, and pairing it with his own future Guinea pig. Having incurred his wrath for disobeying the direct order of killing Barton, she understood the sheen of sweat.

Her nerves were steel though, from both training, and the knowledge that she would never be within the mad doctor’s grasp again. Her loyalty had at no time been to him, nor his organization. She was not “happy to comply,” as he so foolishly believed, having underhandedly taken her in with the promise of fulfilling her deepest desire, only to drug her with the intention of brainwashing her into his employ. If anything, his attempts to wipe her mind of the loyalty to those who had trained her, who had regaled her with the unique skill set and methods of survival in such a world, to replace it with blind loyalty to whatever cause he chose, had failed entirely. The audio and visual cues he subjected her to had only one real effect- it allowed her deeper into her own mind, to play in the recesses and overturn rocks until she found information once thought lost forever.

How ironic would he find it that his endeavors to brainwash served merely to free her of the chains that had already shackled her thought processes? No loyalty hindered movements, only the encompassing motivation to be the best fueled her at present. That and pure detestation for those who appropriated her life for their own ends. With the mantle of The Black Widow firmly hers, she would begin her quest to destroy every last soul involved in the damning of hers.

It was Whitehall’s perversion of her thoughts, already so gnarled by the will of those who trespassed there before him, that broke that levy. Yelena couldn’t help it; a tiny, giggle escaped through her usually impervious lips. She clamped her hand to her mouth, but another giggle bubbled up that she couldn't contain.

“Are you mad?” The doctor asked, “this is nothing to laugh about. That little girl is breaking Whitehall’s hold on his mind. He’ll have both of our heads. Mine for the suggestion, yours for not taking care of that agent in there.”

His trepidation grew exponentially at her erratic behavior, and Yelena forced herself to settle down. She was so close to achieving what she wanted, to becoming who she was always been meant to be. “Doctor Grigor; Grant Ward was your patient, was he not?”

“He was.” The man answered in a bored voice, “he showed promise, I thought. Don’t you agree?”

“Mmmm.” She answered, “yes. I do, actually. All he would need is the proper _conditioning_.” She didn’t allow him to respond, and instead continued in a calm, steady voice. “Isn’t your father, Pchelintsov, buried somewhere in this part of the Western World? Somewhere around your new institution for juveniles, no?”

“My father?” Surprise entered his voice, but no follow up could be made, as the cavernous, calm voice of Whitehall permeated the air.

_“Little Spider. Cross off Barton. Lock the girl up. Bring Dr. Grigor, and the Winter Soldier in.”_

“Copy that.” She shut down the radio, settled back into her seat, then without looking at the doctor and said: “I was the soldier's student.” It was casual, but the words represented something much heavier, and from her peripheral, she could see fear flash across the man’s face. “So was Romanoff, not that she remembers either.”

She smiled, knowing how frightening it was on her usually emotionless face. “But she will. She will remember everything before it’s all done.”

“And….what about…me?” He asked, barely able to muster the words. “Please….I have a family.”

“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” She quoted bitterly, and as he fumbled for the door handle, she gracefully flipped herself atop him, sitting face to face in his lap, before revealing the syringe in her hand, adeptly sticking it into his veins as he struggled with his last moments of consciousness. She tossed the empty vessel onto seat beside him.

She took in a deep breath, before turning back over in the van, flipping the monitor to the next channel, where she was met with the visual of an unconscious Bakshi and Whitehall on the ground. Karp stood over them, proud and strong. His blonde hair was slicked black back, blue eyes vibrant and energetic. She had originally been fond of him for his attractiveness, the straight nose, the hard jaw, and prominent cheekbones. It was his mind that kept her attached though. He had never been a good fighter, her Karp, but his wits made up for it.

She smiled as he leaned towards the camera, adjusting his tie- the same tie that Whitehall was wearing on the ground.

His clothing mirrored his victim’s, and when he touched his cufflink, so did his face. “I guess that answers the question, what do you get the hacker who can steal anything, doesn’t it? A photostatic Veil, my favorite toy.” She was giddy with anticipation. “Put them in the cages- see how much they enjoy it.”

He kicked Whitehall’s unconscious body, foot connecting with the man’s ribs with enough force to fracture them. “Fucking traitor.” He spat on the body. “You think you can fuck with Black Widow? You think you can _control her_?” His voice started to rise, then he let out a breath and lowered it. He turned back to the camera, “I’m sorry I brought him into our lives, Yelena.”

She shrugged, “it worked out for the best. I have my memories back, he practically gift-wrapped Barton for me, and now we know what became of the Red Room’s largest scientific contributor.”

“It’s almost like it’s fate.”

She smiled, “could be, _solnyshko. Could be."_

 

XXX

 

The first thing Natasha did before getting into Garret’s car, was to slip on one of his sweatshirts from his trunk to look less conspicuous, then she pulled out his side-arm and holstered it beneath the over-sized baby blue shirt. Ward was already in the passenger seat of the car, and though he appeared indifferent she could tell from his eyes that he was memorizing every detail, and trying to calculate what his best course of action was. Good.

In silence, she drove, the grim-faced teen in the passenger’s seat, whose lips were as still as hers. When she felt far enough away from the operatives that she was now trying to evade, Natasha pulled the car over, reached into her shirt, and pulled the dime from underneath the crease of her right breast. She smiled at it, placed it on the clock where it stuck on its own; and then turned to face her passenger. It was a gadget that remained secret from even Barton, a tool of the trade that she had once been ordered to obtain for a very powerful Russian mobster. She double-crossed him, kept the dime, and killed everyone who knew of its existence. The memory was not pleasant, nor was she proud of it; even so, the tool was very, very useful.

“I’ve just disabled all forms of tracking and listening devices within, or directly outside, of the vehicle. This includes the one inside the sweater that you're holding- don’t attempt to argue Ward. We both know that inside the pocket is a comm unit, and a tracking device.” He said nothing, didn’t even ask her how she knew. In truth, it was an educated guess. The women who had left her with him had done so far too freely. Natasha deduced that it was in the sweater, because when they had chased after the Winter Soldier, he had not been holding it. One of the ‘Merry Men,’ as they called themselves must have given it back to him. She noted that he still didn’t hand the sweater over, and would confront that matter later. There was a more significant concern in need of address.

It struck her, before she spoke, how monumental of a moment this was for her, and she knew later she would reflect upon it as a marker of just how altered she was from the woman who Agent Clint Barton had been sent to eradicate. She allowed herself this moment of uncharacteristic sentimentality, and silently gave gratitude to her missing partner, for without him, the next speech would never have occurred.

She sucked in a deep breath, “My name, not the one I was born with, but the one I identify as, is Natasha Romanoff. I started my training as an assassin long before I was your age. I’ve been experimented on by scientists, all in an effort to make me the ideal killing machine. They succeeded. I have worked for organizations both opposed, and allied with the United States Government.”

“Uh-”

She put up a hand to silence him, “the most recent organization that I’ve been employed by is SHIELD; I was recruited by Agent Clint Barton, who was sent to assassinate me, however despite knowing some of my darker exploits, he made a different call. He explained that he worked for SHIELD, that they were an organization meant to protect mankind as a whole, from those who sought to destroy it.” For the first time since Natasha could clearly recall, she almost let the weight of her words actually flavor the intonations of how she spoke. Almost. “I could join SHIELD, and _help_ the world, or he would release me back into the world as I was, give me a head start, and then relentlessly pursue me again until he accomplished the mission assignedto him.

“Your choice, I’m sorry to say, is not as easy as the one given to me.” She maintained their eye contact, reading the espressions he let slip past his armour. There was confusion, and fear, and she wouldhave been concerned had there not been. There was also curiosity, and the most apparent, the one he made no endeavor to hide was determination. “I am going rogue from SHIELD, on the off chance that those women in the ambulance were correct. I have no concrete evidence that SHIELD has been compromised, only a few coincidences, and instinct. You are welcome to return to them, after handing over the comm unit so that I can contact those friends of yours. My educated guess is that Garrett is interested in turning you into an agent.” She paused, almost proud of the way he maintained stoicism at her speech, “Out of all the options that I am giving you, this is most likely the safest.”

“But what if the Merry Men were right? Then I wouldn’t be safe.”

“You most likely would be.” Natasha answered honestly, “at least for the time being. Whoever has compromised them, and whatever their goals are, it seems like a long con. You’d, in all probability, have time to become an agent, learn survival skills, and protect yourself.”

“Oh.”

“I cannot guarantee that same safety for your friend. Their efforts to obtain her have been extreme. The Winter Soldier- the assassin that has your friend- has never been confirmed. For them to bring him out in such a public manner, means a great deal.” She wet her lips, and searched his face for comprehension. It was a lot for even her to register, and she had spent her entire life in the shadows of espionage, he had spent his life in the light of a world oblivious to the machinations that kept it running. “If you use Garrett to bring her into SHIELD, and it is compromised, she will end up right back in that soldier’s hands.”

“And my other options?” He prompted.

She sighed, “I release you with the tracking unit. You can dispose of it, and go it on your own. You’ll be caught by SHIELD, and they will decide your fate. Or you keep the device, let your friends find you, and hope they are trustworthy. Perhaps they will help you find Skye, but it's conceivable that they have their own agenda with her. You’ll be on the run from SHIELD forever either way. It will be a lonely, and uncertain life.” Finally, she looked away. There was one last option, and she hoped it would be the one he rejected outright, although knew intuitively it would be the one he seized. She procrastinated by turning her attention to the car window.

The street was filled with conventional people, going about their day. The wreckage by the police station was undoubtedly, already being cleared out, the events buried, memories being wiped. The world would go on as it always had. His life would not. He would never have the privilege of being ordinary ever again, and she silently mourned his loss as if it were her own. Maybe, in a way, it was.

“The final choice is a most likely a _suicide mission_.” Her emphasis wasn’t lost on him, and for the first time she saw his eyes widen slightly. Good. He needed to be afraid enough to lose his cool, it could very well be what kept him alive. “My partner, Agent Barton, is missing, most likely dead. However, if he is alive; I am almost certain he is in the same location as Skye. I am going to contact your friends, learn the location of the Winter Soldier, and attempt an extraction.”

“You’re going after Skye.”

How was it that she knew he was going to latch on to that one single aspect of what she had just told him?

“I am a rogue agent.” She ignored his words, “People will be coming after me from all sides. It’s an impossible task. Even if I succeed, I’ll be a marked woman. If you stick with me, you’ll be marked too.”

He stared at her with opaque eyes, but was silent for longer than she had expected him to be. “The first choice leaves Skye in danger.” He told her simply, “and the second choice is actually _part_ of the third choice; if you think about it. I mean, you need the tracker, right?” He tilted his head a bit forward, and she nodded in response. “The Merry Men have the tracker, we’d be going in the same direction.”

“Okay.” She replied, his answer actually making her hopeful for his survival, not because he made the smart choice, only because he had not _thoughtlessly_ made the wrong one. Mindless bravery filled many coffins in her lifetime. “But why not stay with them?”

“You seem like the better chance of getting to Skye. My priority is saving her.”

“Kid, she’s going to be in danger for the rest of her life; you get that right? This doesn’t just end if we manage to get her back.”

He looked more serious than a boy his age had any right to be. “I’m not changing my mind. So we’re wasting time by arguing about it. I don’t know how much time Skye or your partner really have.”

She sighed, “True.”

Natasha turned the ignition on, and started down the road again, “direct me to wherever the two of you were staying. If your friends were right, and SHIELD is compromised, then there was probably surveillance detail on you. That’s why as soon as Barton and I showed up, your friend was whisked away. Maybe we can trace the signal, and find a clue while waiting for the so-called Merry Men to contact you.”

“Two roads up, turn right.”

 

XXX

 

Clint Barton kept his eyes shut, breathing steady, and senses alert; all despite the mad pounding in his head. He had obviously been drugged, and taken. Where? He didn’t know. Why? From the conversation he was listening to, it must have had something to do with Karp, and the mission. He had been right about the kids going into the motel, that was her voice he heard, though he had no clue which the other one belonged to. Finding the target immediately seemed less absurd to him now, given his current predicament.

It was some kind of trap- but how? Why?

Had it been a trap from the beginning, and if so, had he been the aim all along? It seemed unlikely. There were easier ways to target him, and unless someone had some pretty deep insider information, there was no way they would know he’d be on that particular mission. Fury, Hartley, Klein, Hill, and Romanoff were the only agents in-the-know, and there wasn’t going to be any convincing him of treachery on any of their parts. Fury was a dick, but his intentions were always, undeniably, for the protection of humanity as a whole. Hartley had undergone torture that he wasn't entirely sure he could endure himself, and never betrayed a single member of SHIELD. Klein hated covert missions, because he knew he’d become too attached to the people he would eventually have to betray; it was one of the traits that made Klein so likable, and why Clint counted him as one of his closest friends. Hill was young, and new, but the amount of trust that a downright paranoid Fury gave her spoke volumes about her trustworthiness. Then there was Romanoff.

Natasha Romanoff who had worked against SHIELD for the better part of her existence, who had ties outside of SHIELD that she still maintained communication with in order to garner intel, who was the last face he saw before being drugged, who Fury was probably looking at right that moment as the weak link…

That calm he maintained was threatening to disperse into panic. It wasn’t because he suspected her. On the contrary, his fear was on _her_ behalf. They’d try to take her in…

It would prove disastrous. She’d vanish. Even if he survived this mess that he had somehow stumbled into, he’d never see her again. If she didn’t want to be found, then Romanoff would be lost forever.

While those thoughts swirled furiously in his head, he also listened to the endless questions from the voice of a little girl, and the monosyllabic non-responses of their captor; finding it comparable to a conversation he once had, and it almost drove him to distraction. Yet he could not permit his mind to relent to either the nostalgia, nor the mind-numbing terror that pathway would lead him to.

Instead, the calmer parts of his cognitive processes distracted him into examining the distance between he and those within the vicinity, the way their tones played off the surroundings, and what he could divulge from it. There was the slight humming and vibrations of the motor, so he knew they were in something mobile. The direction of the air told him that they were in an enclosed space, but with a door open.

Within the fabric of his sleeve, sewn in, was a device of his own design, it could shoot out the tiniest of darts, and Clint was more than certain the poison on the end would knock out their captor- but there were a great many unknown variables making that a dangerous plan.

The longer he waited though…

There was a time when lack of intel meant using a riskier espionage weapon: instinct. As much as he desired to use his weapon to incapacitate the man disparaging the very entity that Clint had devoted his life to, he knew that there had to be others involved, and probably close by. Letting his consciousness be known was akin to trashing his best weapon, and he couldn’t take that risk….yet.

He wavered in his decision as he heard the man shouting, sounding like an animal with his leg caught in a trap. Instinctually, he wanted to protect the girl- but he knew that by doing so he would be possibly signing both of their death certificates. It didn’t seem as though he were going after her, she, in fact, sounded concerned.

Stockholm Syndrome? Shock? Clint wasn’t sure- but it wasn’t a good sign for their escape, if she had somehow grown attached, she was less likely to willingly escape with him.

He heard a mechanical sound, and the van doors shut. “What the hell?” Said the girl, “who shut those? What’s going on?”

 _“Buckle up, children. We’re going on a road trip.”_ It was a mechanical voice, disguised obviously, but Clint sensed femininity; _“it’s going to be a wild ride.”_

 

XXX

 

It didn’t take long for Natasha to gather more information about Grant Ward, and his missing friend.

 

The first thing she noticed wasn’t the decrepit state of the building, but rather what the two had done with it. Their little dump looked more like a home than her bedroom at Barton’s, and she wasn’t entirely happy about the feelings that invoked. There were knick-knacks on the countertops, a friendly note from Skye to Ward on the refrigerator listing song titles, and another note that said _WWHD- What Would Hank Do?_ There had been pictures of them somewhere, she was almost sure of it, and even more positive that those were in the bags that Garret had in the back of his car. Bags that should have been given to the forensic's division for study, and yet Garret had kept them. Natasha filed that activity away under suspicious. Looking into Garret was going to be a priority if they survived the cluster fuck they were currently in.

 

Her eyes swept over a heap of pillows and blankets joined together on the floor, then raised back to Ward.

He rolled his eyes, “it wasn’t like that.”

She believed him, but said nothing on the matter. Despite the scrambler she clipped onto her collar to ensure their conversation remained private; she didn’t feel much like talking, not with the way her heart was in her stomach, as she recalled Clint’s playful accusations about her Spartan bedroom. _“Having somewhere to go back to isn’t a bad thing, it doesn’t make you soft, it just gives you one more thing to fight for, to live for.”_ His words ruminated in her mind, as she waved the tracker slowly over areas of the room, and rummaged through artifacts of a friendship. Those objects, and Ward’s very nature made the unlikely pair’s bond seem less and less about debt, and more about genuine emotion.

His interpersonal skills were pitiful, his lack of trust that of a seasoned espionage agent, his pure rage barely concealed beneath a veneer of cold detachment was unmissable, and his ability to adjust to his current, very dangerous situation without freaking out was rare.

He might as well have been wearing a sign that said abuse victim, and it bothered her that no one else seemed to notice it, or care enough to get him help. Fury would have mentioned the abuse, had it been recorded, or even suspected. He was thorough like that. So the abuse went under the radar, and unchecked.

That, the homey surroundings they constructed, and her former interactions with the bright-eyed optimist who was willing to give a stranger a ride painted a much clearer picture than what Natasha had been visualizing before. This wasn’t about a debt at all. This was about fulfilling the basic emotional need which resided in every single being…

The same need she had neglected all of her life believing she was above it, proven as a lie since it now compelled her survivalist nature into hibernation as she risked everything to find the only person in the world she truly felt a connection with.

People were so different with all of their cultures, languages, personalities, and yet…basically the same. Even her. She ached to tell Barton that, despising her own stubbornness of refuting him on it time after time. She exiled those thoughts as unacceptable. Regret was a form of futility, of giving in; and it meant that she had given up on the idea that Barton was alive.

Natasha continued delving through articles of clothing, touching the bottoms, and backs of shelves, looking for any kind of surveillance. He was dragging the oven out, the noise it made against the floor filling the silence between them, and was punctuated by the thud of him knocking it onto its side. Natasha didn’t bother looking up; her attention was everywhere else but on Ward, really. She listened for approaching footsteps, kept her eyes peeled for any suspicious items, and kept every sense in tune with the environment, awaiting even the slightest alteration.

They were far enough away from the car for the tracker in Skye’s sweater to start working, and Natasha was expecting that her former captors to arrive shortly, and hoping against hope that they had some answers for her.

“That guy, This Winter Soldier.” Ward said quietly, as he continued his search and purposely didn’t gaze in her direction, “he’s an assassin.” It wasn’t a question, but Natasha knew to translate it as such. It was an inquiry on the status of his friend, on if she was alive.

“He is. Which is why I believe your friend is alive. If he intended to kill her, he’d not have taken her. She would already be cold.” She was being sincere, but even if she had doubt, Natasha would have given the same answer in that identicle relaxed, confident manner she had used at that moment. “The Winter Soldier is something of a legend,” she went on, trying to explain how efficient of an assassin he was, “no one believed he was real, there’s no evidence of his existence, and his supposed targets date all the way back to the 50’s.”

“He looked your age.” Grant’s words were uncertain.

She held a stuffed rabbit in her hands, and turned it over, waving the wand over it. She had never owned such an item, and despite the fluff inside, the toy seemed heavy. “He sure did.” She agreed, bothered by the youth on her attacker’s face. “Maybe he’s the second Winter Soldier, perhaps the first took on an apprentice. It’s not unheard of.”

“Would you take on an apprentice?”

She dropped the toy, but didn’t look at him, even if his eyes were trained on her. She knew what he was really asking, especially considering her earlier threat that Skye would always be in danger. It was noble that he wished to protect her, but she also felt it was something more- a deep-seated requirement for self-preservation. She opened the refrigerator that they had turned into shelves, and started emptying the contents onto the floor, no longer using the carefulness and sensitivity that she had been. She didn’t need the kid hero-worshipping her, or worse, trying to become her. “He’s probably killed almost as many people as I have.” The words came out crisp, and harsh. “The difference is, people know I exist; they know some of my targets, and can pinpoint me with absolute certainty to their demises. He, on the other hand, has been a ghost story, a catch-all scapegoat for unsolved mysteries. That kind of talent, well….” She trailed off, “I would never have believed anyone was more efficient at murder than myself.” Finally she looked at him, expression as stony, and heartless as she could make it. “I don’t take on apprentices.”

He raised a brow, “how many targets have you taken out?”

“Murdered.” She corrected, hating the necessary word. So often she refused to use it, just as all of her kind did. Euphemisms took the place of the scary M word: Crossed off. Taken out. Threat eliminated. Funny how a bunch of cold-blooded killers couldn’t bring themselves to recognize their own disassociation to the word “murder,” and how that enabled them to continue with their missions. Even then, the word left her feeling twisted and wrong inside, whereas it would not have, had she gave it another title. “More people than you’ve probably shaken hands with.” She never gave out the number- only counted them at night, as most put numbers on sheep before finally slipping into slumber. A subject change was in order, considering the gravity of their situation. “The most curious part of this is The Winter Soldier- he has taken great pains in hiding his existence for a very long time. Outside of a few witnesses that lack any kind of credibility, no one has ever seen him. So why out himself now, in front of so many people, for your friend? And why is she needed alive?” She went back to her efforts to find surveillance equipment. The length of their search was beginning to cause trepidation. What if her instinct to trust the Merry Men had been wrong, what if it all was just a coincidence, and she separated from SHIELD for nothing? “Is there something you’re not telling me about her? Something special about her, I don’t mean why she’s your friend- I mean, like secrets, special skills.”

“Like super strength?” He responded without any kind of incredulity, “I mean, that man was certainly stronger than anyone I’ve ever been hit by.”

“Like that.”

“No. I mean, she’s a hacker, but…so are lots of people, right?”

The surveillance detecting equipment began reacting with a flashing white light as she waved it over the door frame from the kitchen to the rest of the house. She inspected the door carefully, both sides, underneath, before she hopped up, gripped the top of the door with one hand to keep her raised in the air, then felt the rest of the top with her free hand. Nothing. She landed silently back on the ground, only to be met by Ward, who had a screw driver in his left hand. Wordlessly, and without needing to be told, he began to unfasten the doorknob. He handed the loose knob to her to inspect before returning to one knee and unscrewing the face plate, then the strike plate. At the last, he stood, and handed it to her. “Is…that it?”

The chip, no larger than her own tool she used to block such surveillance, was attached to the back of the strike plate. “Yes.” She replied.

“These people, maybe your people, they have been listening to us the whole time.” His eyes were obsidians, “every word.” The violation he felt broke through the mask, lining his forehead, and pinching his already tense mouth.

“So lets go hunt them.” She told him, deciding to harness those feelings of his in a productive manner.

 

 

XXX

Nick Fury was about to seriously lose his shit.

First Garrett checked in as the lead on Romanoff’s mission, reporting no sign of the girl, or the Winter fucking Soldier, who was apparently a _real_ assassin after all, then Garrett’s SHIELD issued vehicle, which Romanoff had borrowed to bring one out of two of the missing teens to his personal Airborne Command Station, never arrived, and worse, fell off the grid.

It took every ounce of restraint not to bark out the information at Hartley and May, who were totally undeserving of his wrath, and merely suffered under the misfortune of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

May, arms crossed over her chest, one eyebrow arched, and Hartley, hands draped casually at her sides, with an irritated expression, seemed nonplussed by his outrage. May was accustomed to his "temper tantrums," having worked with him before he had attained his position as director of SHIELD, and been a long-time friend. Hartley was not nearly as used to his temperment, but was well versed at hiding emotions. He'd apologize to them later for his behavior...

Unless of course everything went south, and he had to face the fucking council.

After he explained Romanoff’s disappearance, Hartley shrugged. “She went rogue to find Barton, not a big deal.”

The undercover agent _wouldn’t_ see it as an issue, since working on the fly was par-for-course in her neck-of-the-woods. She was a solid agent, who did fine work, and had no desire to move up in the agency. If he hadn’t already deduced that, her casual dismissal of Romanoff 'going rogue' would have clued him in. He leveled her with a glare. “Natasha Romanoff, up until very recently, has worked for agencies directly opposed to us. Wouldn’t you think that her suddenly vanishing after a botched mission, and the surfacing of an assassin rumored to have been trained _by the very same people_ that she was trained by, seem suspicious to you?"

Hartley shifted uncomfortably as he eye-balled her with disdain, and then turned his attention to the monitor that hung on the wall behind the long table, that resembled a bar more than anything else. On the screen was all the information on the two teens, The Winter Soldier, and anyone connected to the mission. Programs sorted, sifted, categorized, and made connections for them. Still, it would take a human mind to solve their predicament. It was a comfort, really, that technology had not quite replaced them all yet.

The images illuminated the rather dimly lit debriefing area, which looked to belong in the home of an affluent family instead of on a plane with its rich maroon walls, and lush brown carpeting. Since a great deal of his time was spent within its confines, he had wanted it to feel as comfortable as possible. He glanced at Hartley, who had already dismissed their conversation to put her full attention on the information in front of them.

Fury never trusted anyone completely, and he’d have been a fool to trust Romanoff at all. Still, a part of him was more than a little disappointed at the recent events, and there was a nagging doubt inside of him that should have easily been silenced by the crushing reasons to expect a betrayal from the former assassin.

It had been a while since he was actually _hurt_ that he was wrong about someone, even longer since his personal preference motivated hom to was try to convince him of the impossible- that Romanoff wasn’t really a traitor.

“This is a mess.” Breathed a frustrated May.

He nodded ascent.

“Way too much of a mess for Romanoff to make. She’s clean, efficient.”

“Agent?” Fury questioned.

May stared at him with the core of steel he had come to admire her for. “I think perhaps Agent Hartley was correct in her initial assumption regarding Agent Romanoff.”

The two women glanced at each other, and Hartley smiles slightly at being defended.

“What are you suggesting, Agent May? That we take a leap of faith?”

“Of course not,” she quipped easily, “I’m simply suggesting that we keep her absence under wraps, and then track her down personally. It has strategic advantages, and you don’t look like an idiot for bringing in an enemy agent, because Agent Barton had a crush.” There was a playful levity in her voice, and he hid a smile at her both her audacity, and humor.

Women were always portrayed as these docile creatures throughout history, as servants to men. How foolish of his gender to overlook them, to deny themselves and the world of their potential. All of those missed opportunities squandered by pomposity and the thirst for power. Fury was fortunate enough to have never fallen prey to the attitude, and often found the best agents to be women. May's solution was simply further proof of that.

He gave her a slight nod, “Hartley, man the ship- and start listing other possible suspects who may have leaked any information on this mission. Not only Romanoff’s team, Klein, and Hill- but Garrett and North were both debriefed early on as a contingency plan.”

Hartley suggested ascent with a tilt of the head.

He glanced at May, “looks like I’m going back into the field, eh?”

“About time.” May retorted slyly.

 

 

 

XXX

 

The tracker led them to a booster, disguised remarkably like a satellite for television, posted on the roof of a large house two doors down, which looked to have been converted into three separate apartments. It wasn’t the main source, unfortunately. That was really too bad, since it had so many concealed entry points, and their chances of being seen by those manning the surveillance equipment would have been dramatically decreased if Natasha and Ward could end their journey there.

She cast a hunting look around the downtrodden neighborhood, and almost snickered at the idea of anyone calling it a slum. Everything was relative though, she decided, eyes taking in the dreary, but otherwise functional, buildings that packed its space, the cracked sidewalks occasionally peppered with trash, and the broken pavement of the roads where lines were so faded they became barely visible. There were places in the world where people wished to be in this kind of neighborhood.

More distractions that she mentally swatted away, before focusing once more on the task at hand. It led them to an apartment building across the way. It was six stories high, made of deep red brick, with a line of windows across for every floor. She was suddenly very glad of taking the back way out of the house, and quickly moving between trees and houses to keep them camouflaged- even if they had been seen by one or two wayward children, who really should have been in school.

She signaled for Ward to follow as she noted a secure entry-point, mostly hidden to the upper levels of the building, where the surveyor most likely was, or had been at some point. It would have been ideal to leave him behind as she went into the building, but on the off-chance that they had been seen, she didn’t want to leave him unprotected.

The entrance was an open window, which ended up belonging to a storage unit. She climbed through first, having no trouble, and hopped onto her hands, springing herself onto her feet in a small flip- it was showboating, not one of her finest traits when she turned around to see Ward’s appraisal, and scant smile, she felt pleased. He came through next, feet first, dropping to the ground slowly, fingers clinging to the edge of the window seal so that he could make a silent landing. Immediately she gauged her surroundings- cubicles of fenced in objects lined the walls, tarps over them to protect from dust. The room smelled like a basement, dank, musty, and unused. Everything was a washed out grey color. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all cement, and lined with the noisy leaden-looking pipes, that could be hiding the sound of an enemy approaching.

It certainly was hiding her sounds, as she stepped with the rhythms of the dins they made. Not that it mattered, Ward didn’t know to do that. The only other sounds were the pattering of feet on the upper levels, music wafting from one of the apartments above, and Ward’s breathing.

If they were going to be made, it already would have happened, Natasha retained her stealth irrespective of that knowledge, and followed where the tracker was leading her to. The directional icon disappeared.

So straight up.

She revealed the image to Ward, who raised a brow, and so she pointed toward the ceiling. They would climb the stairs until the light began flashing, indicating proximity to the source of the signal that they were tracking. She did so noiselessly, paying attention to the sounds of her new comrade, which seemed to quiet down the farther they traveled. He was learning fast. The arrow would flash west, whenever moving slightly east, and so she knew what side the apartment door would be on once arriving to the correct floor.

By the fourth story, the light flashed several times.

To her right was a wooden door. She leaned closer to it, listening intently for sounds within- what she heard was music and loud talking from neighboring apartments, the commotion of the pipes, rustling of clothing and breathing from Ward, and, amongst the clatter a slamming against walls. She walked down the hallway, fingers trailing against the wall until she felt the vibration.

She held her hand up to Ward, then pointed to where he needed to stand, which was where she was positioned; against the wall, a few feet away from the door. They switched spots, and Natasha tried the knob, using the wall as camouflage as it squeaked open. Not even locked. She almost wanted to sigh in relief.

Instead she aimed her gun as she whirled into the open space, eyes taking in everything at once. Immediately she heard the commotion was coming from the closet, positioned against the wall adjacent to the apartment hallway. Meanwhile, her eyes drank in the rest for threats and intel.

The efficiency apartment had cobwebs, not just in the corners, but running down some of the walls, garbage piles on the ground, overflowing dishes in the sink. She knew of many who would look at the people who resided in the dump as lazy trash who couldn’t even clean up after themselves. Natasha saw it differently. The person, or people, who let their homes become shabby had often just been so beaten down by life, that they had given up. Despair was a strong, toxic feeling.

Among the rubble was technology beyond what most would call state-of-the-art, set up by a window that would have the perfect vantage point of both the runaways home, and the hotel they seemed to be utilizing.

 

Several monitors revealing footage from street cameras around the neighborhood were lined up together- although none seemed to have video from inside the kid’s actual home. There was a comm unit, dials flashing in some places. Messages that had been missed.

This was a command center. This was _the_ command center. So why was it abandoned? And how soon would the people return?

Natasha immediately recognized the equipment as SHIELD property, and she expected relief to flood her, nevertheless, there was none. She abruptly understood how much she didn’t want her suspicions to be true; despite severing ties with the organizations, Natasha had unconsciously been expecting to be proven wrong. No, it was more than that. She _wanted_ to be wrong.

The desperate sounds of pounding from the closet matched her mood, and she took a deep breath before walking over to it. The former tenants were inside. She couldn’t let them see her face, but at the same time, she also couldn’t, in good conscience, allow them to rot inside that tiny space.

Her gaze shifted as Ward walked in, she made a slashing gesture with her hand in disapproval, before putting a finger to her lips. She didn’t want the tenants to be able to recognize either of their voices.

She had precious little time, and so began to work. First by inspecting the equipment thoroughly, each dial, each monitor, and then disconnecting the hard drive and handing it to Ward, who was following her like a lost puppy. His eyes were wide with fear, and wonder. For him, this was a whole new world, and was undoubtedly as fascinating as it was terrifying.

In a way it was for her too, because there had always been orders. There had always been a mission given to her, some shadowy, monolithic organization that backed her up . As she stared at the equipment that she was mechanically stripping down of usefulness, and information, now a shining symbol of betrayal, she didn’t have that anymore.

For the first time since she was just a tiny, terrified little girl, she truly felt like an orphan.

Ward was taking all the mechanics that she handed to him.

When she was satisfied with her intel collection, she picked up the apartment phone, and dialed the police.

_“911. What is your emergency?”_

Knowing the likelihood of what would draw the police there in a timely fashion, she claimed to be the owner of the building, and that her daughter was being held hostage. She gave them the address of their location, and then hung up the phone. It was easy to disguise her voice beyond recognition, so if the closet dwellers heard the call, she wasn't worried.

With a nod his way, they walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind them, and then descended the stairwell and exited the same they entered. This time, however, they walked normally, as to seem just like everyone else.

“That was SHIELD equipment,” she told him darkly, “which means we truly are on our own.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the comm unit that the Merry Men had put on him, it looked just like a kid’s walkie talkie. “Not truly alone.” The green light was on.

Natasha snatched it out of his hand, and pressed the talk button as they approached a dead-end alley, empty sans trash, a large dumpster, and a very rusted vehicle. She swiftly turned into it. “Romanoff here.”

 _“Agent Romanoff.”_ It was the driver from the ambulance. Her voice was tense and quick, but Natasha couldn’t quite tell if that emotion was real or fake. _“press the red button on the back of the device, then set it down and step away five paces.”_

Natasha jogged towards the dumpster, to use as cover, set the device down, then pressed the button, just as directed. A moment later a blue-tinted hologram, slightly bigger than the both of them, appeared. It was the woman who had been dressed as a police officer, only she was in black tactical gear, gun strapped to her thigh, knives to her ankle, and some kind of device on her left arm, looking every bit a formidable foe. A small fraction of her background was visible, and Natasha did her best to pull whatever information that she could from it, though there wasn’t much. White walls, the very edge of some kind of large machine, with a monitor attached to it. On the other side of her a steel-looking slab. Ordinary taupe colored walls, and oak floors. If the oak was real, that could indicate decent financing- although her tech alone was enough to deduce that.

“Natasha Romanoff.” She said blankly, “Grant Ward.” There was more warmth in the second name.

Her new companion wasted no time. “Did you find her? Did you get Skye?” He wanted to know, forgoing any kind of politeness.

“We have her location,” there was a note of promise in the way that she said it, “but we can’t go in with our current resources. Data indicates total mission failure.”

“I’ll go in. Just tell me where she is.” He told her, words heavy and solid like stone.

“Stand down.” Natasha ordered icily. “You’re no good to her dead, now are you?” When he visibly stepped backward at the icy words, she looked to the hologram. “Who are you? What is your interest in this?”

She gave a wry smile, “my name is Lee Avery, I was formerly an Agent of SHIELD- but 14 years ago I was sent on a mission to bring in an 0-8-4. It was a baby....and you know her as Skye."

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

So I have had this story, and its sequel, mapped out from the beginning; but as I was going over that outline with my friend, she noted that I have a tiny problem.

At the end of Part 1 there is a 5 year time jump, and when we catch up with our protagonists of the tale, they are at a very different place emotionally, than when we last see them. I was going to use flashbacks to clue the readers in on how they came to be this way. She thought this would lack real depth, and suggested I make it into a trilogy.

I’m leaving this up to you guys- here are your options, as well as some pros and cons for each one.

**Option A**

My original plan stands. We have a 2 part tale, where in the 2nd part we have flashbacks from the five missing years between stories.

Pros

  *          This is a more direct route to romantic!Skyeward
  *          Less to read (depending on your perspective)



Cons

  *          Lack of depth and perspective on how Skyeward’s feelings for each other alter, as well as their relationships with the other characters, alter and develop.
  *          Missing lots of fun Clintasha stuff, as well as their interactions with other characters.
  *          Less to read (depending on your perspective)



**Option B**

I write this into a trilogy, with the second part containing “mini-stories” that fill in the five year gap.

Pros

  *          Further insight into the characters
  *          A lot of fluff
  *          See the precursors to HOW Skyeward start to become romantic (you know, those awkward little moments, where a hug might be something more, bits of jealousy, longing looks, that kind of thing.
  *          More to read (depending on perspective)



Cons

  *          It takes longer to get to Romantic!Skyeward
  *          It’s not one story with a solid beginning, middle and end
  *          There are no cons if you’re reading this for Clintasha, haha
  *          More to read (depending on perspective)



 

**Option C**

I make this a trilogy and write parts 2 and 3 simultaneously; and when I use flashbacks in part 3, I post the mini-stories that go with the flashbacks in part 2.

Pros

  *          A slightly more direct route to Romantic!Skyeward
  *          All the pros of option B, basically.



Cons

  *          It will not be in chronological order
  *          There will be a longer wait between chapters in Part 3 (read: cliffhangers will make you all the more angry)
  *          All the cons of Option B, basically



 

Please let me know what option you guys prefer, either by replying to this with your preference, or by messaging me privately (can you do that on a03?). You can also message me on tumblr <http://misslocus.tumblr.com/>. All you need do is tell me, "I choose Option __"

Keep in mind that the response to this changes the outline of Part 1, so the earlier you give me feedback, the better. I will close the voting on February 28th, 2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I would have the next chapter up already, but my word processor is not functioning properly, and my computer seems to hate me. I'm taking it to get fixed tomorrow. So there will be more soon!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Fury's no good, very bad day gets decidedly worse, Natasha and Grant get a history lesson, Skye shocks herself, and a kidnapper with a revelation, and the author is incredibly apologetic about the hiatus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously though, I am so sorry about the long wait for this, and am incredibly grateful for your patience, also to those who reached out to check on my well being (which is finally much better), and to the people who messaged me about missing the story because of how much they enjoyed it. It's been a hard couple of months, and you guys have been really good to me. Words can't express how thankful, and blessed I feel. 
> 
> In other news....
> 
> Ultron happened, and Clint is married. Thankfully, this fic can skate by that, by being before all that occurred. I'm also grateful that they didn't mess up what I had intended for the Maximoff twins, because I've always intended to have them, as well as the other Avengers, make cameos (or more) in this fic. 
> 
> Then the AOS ending happened, and kind of messed something up that I had planned for Skye's history, as well as the Inhumans, and I can either decide to work around that, or ignore it. I haven't decided which. 
> 
> Warning: This chapter is really long, but I couldn't find a way to cut it down, and not screw up the timing in the next chapter.

**Chapter Nine**

 

The fight not to let her emotions get the best of her, and stay composed was a losing battle for Skye as the vehicle leapt into motion, sending her blindly tumbling into the man with the mechanical arm, whose sanity was precarious at best. Fright burst forth from her mouth in a cry that would rival any scream queen in a horror movie.

Oddly, the sound seemed to stabilize her captor. His human arm circled around her shoulders and he held her still. His warmth, of all things, threatened to undo her. It cut through the fantastical making everything too real. Tears were once again a heartbeat away, and her throat felt swollen shut. Never had she been this terrified, this abandoned, this confused. Somehow all the rejections of not being wanted, and the helplessness of not being able to decide where she would sleep the next night seemed distant and trivial. This was a real loss of control: being stuck as the rope in a tug-of-war between two unknown entities. Being told that she was going to be used by one of them, or be killed like her mother had been by the other. Her mother….

His cheek was against the top of her head, his breath against her hairline. He was no more in control of his life than she was hers, and there was a chance that he was being fed wrong information. Could he have been misled about her mother? Dare she hope? She opened her eyes blinking, surprised by the light having been turned back on.

Everything looked sterile, almost like a hospital room. There was no dirt, no clutter, just the cage that had kept her, the one that still held the businessman- who she recognized from the motel, and an empty cage behind it with a gurney that she wasn’t sure if she noticed before. The bars were all steel, the doors equipped with a scan screen, and the cages themselves were bolted to the floor. They were not put inside for this one instance, this vehicle had gotten usage out of it, meaning more prisoners, and that realization just added another ripple in her sea of terror.

Her eyes landed on the man in the pen closed, body limp, and knew that he had been the man at the motel, the one that had seen her with Grant. Her anxiety for the troubled teen multiplied. She wondered where he was, if he was in a similar situation, if she had brought these horrors down upon him as well, adding to his already horrific past. She hoped not. She wished that he was alright, that he had somehow managed to make it to the Merry Men, and they were currently fixing him a new identity.

 _Please_. Her mind begged no one in particular. She wasn’t the kind to believe in any higher power, or whatever. One of those never made sense, because if there was something up there, she wouldn’t have always felt so alone.

Maybe she was begging the world itself, an idea that made her cast the silent pleas aside. When had the world ever cared about her, or Grant for that matter?

“Orders.”

It was whispered into her hair a breath before her kidnapper was on his feet and striding toward the cage. “Cross off all SHIELD agents, bring the girl safely to me.”

 _No_.

She thought the word before it escaped from her throat in something like an embarrassing squeak. Skye scrambled to her own feet, the loud mechanical opening sound heightening her speed, and inspiring her to lunge past the would-be murderer and use her body as armor for the unconscious prisoner.

Breathlessly, both from the quick movement, and sheer panic, she told him in a high voice , “Woah, no, no, no. They’ll be no disassembling the prisoner, Johnny-5.” Her own sentence calmed her somehow, thought she couldn't for the life of her understand why.

“Move.” He ground out.

Suddenly pieces started to fit together inside her head, feeling a lot like the moment when a particularly taxing program she was trying to write was giving her trouble, suddenly became incredibly easy to figure out. She wouldn’t even necessarily be thinking about that particular program when it happened, almost as if her unconscious was computing the problem, while she worked on something else. When that damn broke though, and freed the waters, she had to work on the program immediately. Her fingers would travel like lightning against the keys, creating a pleasing rhythmic sound that only encouraged the speed of which she finished her work. Always, _always_ the results were flawless, and her tiny dream would be realized on the glowing screen before her. When she would try to explain what she had done, others would find it baffling, insisting that it was impossible, that "script just didn’t function in that manner." This phenomenon wasn't exclusive to programming, she just related it to what she loved most. Her strange thought patterns usually only brought misfortune to her in other endeavors. It was constantly getting her into trouble at school, because they wanted things done a certain way, _their_ way, when she "stubbornly" believed that her own way was simply _faster,_ and better.

At that moment, she was starting to believe that her algebra teacher, who insisted that she follow their steps, and not use her personal short cuts, had been correct when he claimed,"those _“those won’t always work for you, Miss Poots. One day you’re going to come to the wrong conclusion, and all because you couldn’t follow a few simple, steadfast rules.”_

Rules. Laws. All fallible, because man was fallible.

As she stared into startling blue eyes, finely drawn features smudged with black grease to disguise them, and that _achingly_ familiar countenance, her mind drew a perfectly _impossible_ conclusion. It broke the rules. _All the rules_.

It gnawed at her though, even as she shoved the preposterous idea into the recesses of her obviously malfunctioning brain to confront the much more pressing issue of keeping everyone alive.

“You’re going to have to move me, and I will make any attempt as painful for myself as possible.” Her threat hung between them, and she gave herself a mental pat on the back for her cleverness of using his orders against him. “Which orders do you think are more important?”

**XXX**

“Is that name supposed to mean anything to me? Were you some sort of SHIELD legend?” Romanoff asked, arms folded, with one foot slightly ahead of the other, eyebrow arched and head cocked to the side, “because if so, you’ve sorely over-estimated your fame.”

_“Quite the contrary, Agent Romanoff- unlike you, I’m not espionage royalty. I was just a green agent- new, and in way over her head. I had more in common with Grant Ward here, then I’ll probably ever have with you.”_

Romanoff blew out a gust of air, red tendrils of her locks moving from her face to reveal an exaggerated eye roll. “Platitudes aren’t winning you favors, and they are definitely wasting time. We’re at an impasse. I don’t trust you, and you don’t trust me- any ideas on how to proceed?”

Avery swallowed hard, mouth in a thin line, and ghosts behind her eyes.

Grant looked from the hologram, to Romanoff, his arms heavy with the surveillance materials they pilfered, heart heavy with the stress of not protecting the only person who ever believed in him, and mind heavy with the questions mounting from the moment Skye had been taken. _How are you not buckling yet?_ Somewhere the questioned echoed in his mind over, and over. He knew how weak he was, how pathetic, how useless- so how was he still functioning?

Another part of his mind spoke. It wasn’t quite an answer, nor was it his own voice, or his mother's, or Christian's with their usual insults and degradation that replayed on a loop within his head. It was Skye’s, and it was more vibrant than any that came before it. " _You’re the guy I sleep next to every single night, so that I feel safe. That is who you are, Grant Ward."_

“I don’t know what an 0-8-4 is, or exactly what SHIELD is, or why people are after Skye; but she believed in the MerryMen, and did it without anything bad happening to her for quite a while.” Finally, he looked at Romanoff, resigning himself to the fact that his next words would sever whatever tenuous bond that they had been forming over the last few hours. She stared at him, eyes opaque, face as still and radiant, shining like a diamond against the backdrop of a dirty, battered alley. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and that was only amplified by the incomprehensible abilities as a spy he had witnessed since their meeting. Grant thought of Skye’s cinematic obsessions, and was seized by an irrational need to laugh because he could almost hear her accusing _him_ of being a Bond-girl. Infatuation be damned though, Ward knew that Skye's safety had to come first. “And I trust you, because my gut tells me to; and the last person who gave me that feeling pulled through for me; so I want you to come with me to Avery, but I understand if you won't."

She raised her head by a centimeter, eyes climbing up from his toes to his head, then resting on his face. She looked as though she was about to speak. Instead, faster than his eyes could even take in, she was grabbing for him, shoving him behind the dumpster completely and shutting off the walked-talkie before diving behind the rusted car. All so quickly that his mind barely registered the movement, let alone have any hope of working rapidly enough to understand what was going on.

The alley was suddenly echoing with the sounds of bullets, drowning out any thought that Grant Ward could have possessed.

“You’re surrounded, Agent Romanoff, surrender now to SHIELD and perhaps some leniency might be shown.”

Grant pressed himself against the dumpster, trying to focus despite his ringing ears, pounding heart, and massive quantities of adrenaline pumping through him. He glanced to his left, to the car that he had watched Romanoff dive behind.

Grimy brick, stained pavement, and rusty metal were all that his eyes took in.

Romanoff was gone.

He was alone.

**XXX**

_He_ stopped, posture loosening, and expression slacking. His body ticked forward, before moving back to its original position. Despite her clammy palms, Skye was about to plea for the comatose stranger’s life for two reasons: the first is no one needed to die, and the second was for Grant. If this man belonged to SHIELD, and they had Grant, she could use this guy to get him out.

Instead, she was flung off of him, and she landed with her left arm beneath her, twisting angrily. Whatever happened was too quick for her to catch, the effects, however, were observable. The captive was on his feet, while the captor was stumbling backward, flesh hand covering a spot on his neck, while his mechanical limb reached out to the wall to cease his lumbering. By the time her attention went back to the prisoner, he had a knife in his hand, though she had no idea where he retrieved it.

Skye reacted before thinking.

She jumped to her feet, ankles protesting at the force with which she dived forward to try to get the knife from the former detainee. He grabbed her arm that already smarted for falling on it, and swung her aside as she yelped in pain. She ricocheted off his cage as the vehicle jerked forward, and past him again, careening into the metal arm, that met with her jaw and cheekbone. It radiated pain through her face, while he lost his footing, sending them both to the ground in a heap of tangled body parts. With her right hand, she grabbed the gun holstered on Johnny-5’s side, and held the small, but heavy, piece up at the now conscious member of SHIELD.

She had no idea what kind of gun it was, or even how to use it- but she did muster some pride at how she didn’t let it wobble, despite the physical and emotional weight of it. “Drop the knife. What did you do to him? Did you poison him?” She demanded, “tell me or I will shoot you.”

“Will you, now?” He asked, but he dropped the knife and put both hands in the air. His lips were upturned in one of those cocky smiles she always found herself hating, and his eyebrows were slightly raised. “I didn’t poison him- it’s just a sedative. Like the kind they gave me. Fair’s fair, right? I'm Clint Barton, and you are?"

She clumsily climbed to her feet, gun shifting with her movements as she untangled herself from the barely-cognizant mass of sluggish movement. Once fully standing, she steadied her gun with her other hand, but her left arm certainly wasn’t happy about her making use of it. She decided to not answer his question, “You don’t get to hurt him.”

One eyebrow lowered, “so you don’t want me to incapacitate our abductor, and free the two of us, then?” He asked, with the exact amount of sarcasm necessary to annoy her right out of panic. “Glad you like being kidnapped, I’ll make a note of it.”

“It isn’t like that.” She shot back furiously, “this isn’t some weird case of me falling for the guy my nuns warned me about, okay? That’s a whole separate set of character flaws, trust me. This is me realizing that someone- or a lot of someones- really scrambled the insides of this guy’s head. This whole psycho-robot -parts freak show he is living is _not_ his fault. He doesn’t need killed, he needs _help._ ”

For a second she noticed something Clint's in face, his features realaxed, and his head tilted ever-so-slightly to the left. It was gone as fast as he moved- like lightning. One breath, she was in control, and in the next, she was being yanked to his side of the van, and he was twisting her pain-free arm behind her back, while pressing the gun to her temple. “Let us go.” He demanded, barely an octave below yelling. “Or I’m going to dispose of the cargo.”

Laughter, altered by a mechanical voice-changer, making it sound like the sound of a dying robot instead of anything with mirth, reverberated against the walls of their prison, and sent a trickle of sweat down Skye’s spine. _“What a quandary.”_ It said, when the awful sound had ceased, _“does the righteous bird, finally flock into the shadows, to save his own feathers? Or fall back on his perch, with clipped wings, awaiting death for both he and his target? Remember, pretty bird, threats only work if you plan on following through.”_

She felt the barrel leave her skull and from her peripheral watched it take aim on the man he rendered unconscious.

_“Oh, plot twist- but what fun is defenseless prey, Agent Barton?”_

The gun made a cocking noise, and Skye stiffened in his grasp. “Please don’t,” she whispered tremulously, cursing her own weakness.

 _“Never beg, drakonka.”_ The voice grew louder with its command, and Skye snapped her mouth shut. She did not recognize the word, but believed it to be Russian. She tried to work it out: from knowing how this all began, through hacking, and the mere sound of the stem _drakon_ , Skye believed that she was being addressed by her handle; PeskyDragon. Funny, she didn’t feel much like a dragon at that very moment. _“Especially not for those who have harmed you.That man,he is your enemy,he is nothing to you.”_

She dampened her dried, cracked lips, and took a deep breath so that she could respond. “He doesn’t feel like an enemy.” The sentence sounded illogical, like the mutterings of a silly little girl, even to her, yet her belief was strengthened by a silent repeating of his name, despite the impracticable nature of it. “He feels like someone who needs to be saved.”

 _“You don’t look like you’re in a position to save anyone, drakonka_.”

_“Ah, but what of the bird restraining you?”_

“He….” It wasn’t that she had forgotten the man- how could she? He was large and imposing, reminding her of his size when she stumbled slightly into his thick arms, and hard torso. His grip was close to cutting off the circulation in her wrist, and his right foot was just in front of hers, ready to kick backwards and trip her if she tried to escape. It was more because he could have easily out maneuvered her earlier, and instead opted to hear her reasoning. This gave her confidence that he had no real intention of damaging her. Still, that explanation was just as weak as her desire to help her first detainer. They all probably thought she was nuts, and that assumptions, she decided, was in all likelihood the correct one. “You can make a deal with him. His freedom to spare our lives.”

 _“Listen how your hostage considers you a bird of your word, Hawkeye.” she sing-songed_ , sounding slightly deranged. Skye shivered. _“And there you are threatening her life. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.”_

“Of course, this is all _my_ fault. You sound just like my ex- oh wait, is that you, Karla? Because this is exactly why we didn’t work out. I mean, when you said that you liked games, I really thought you meant monopoly.”

_“Games can be fun. I do have a long way to travel, and very little entertainment. Perhaps we can see just how far you’ll take this charade.”_

“Nice pun. But this is your farce,” he replied curtly, “your associate here has made it abundantly clear that she needs to be kept safe.”

_“Oh, that.” Boredom lulled the last syllable, “well, perhaps I’m less concerned with that than he is- or… maybe I’m bluffing. What do you think?”_

Skye’s heart dropped to her stomach, and tears spilled down her cheeks, as she felt the barrel hard against her temple once more. “Am I bluffing?” He exhorted gruffly, his warm breath ruffling her hair with the force of which he spoke.

Her instincts that he was a good man wavered, as fear dominated all other feelings that warred inside her. It conjured notions on how little she had accomplished in her short life, how none of her questions had been answered, and how she had dragged a wonderful boy, already scarred from life, into an even worse situation that was probably going to end with them both as corpses.

_“History would indicate that you are; Hawkeye- the only bird of prey that feasts solely on the corrupt, on the merciless, on the evil. She embodies none of those traits, does she? I mean, you don’t get more innocent than that sweet little girl, do you? But then, weren’t we all that way once? I was her at one time, as was your precious Black Widow.”_

Skye involuntarily tightened at the woman's last words, for she was certain the creepy, phantom voice belonged to a she, though why she knew it, was a mystery. 

SHIELD. Black Widow. Russia. Russia. Russia. Skye tried to focus on adding all this new information from Mr. Robot Arm, Crazy Robot Voice, and the SHIELD Agent threatening to kill her, to the pools of Rising Tide data all jumbled inside her head in a mass of inextricable threads; as if solving all of these riddles would maybe save her life. It was an outrageous notion, but she held onto it regardless. It was no more insane than the who identity of her original abductor seemed to be, _couldn't be_. Plus, using all those tangled strings as a rope to pull herself out of mind numbing terror, and allowed her to operate as if she _hadn't_ just fallen down the rabbit hole.

_"Look at her, Pretty Bird- did you know she calls herself Skye? What else would a little orphan, runaway call themselves though? Oh, I know.... Hawkeye."_

He still didn’t let go of her, “I will happily kill _him_ though. He’s no innocent little girl, despite the luscious locks- someone really should give him a comb or something."

_"You know him so well?"_

"He’s the Winter Soldier, responsible for decades worth of death. Even if he’s the second, or the third in line, his hands are still seeped in blood."

 _“This toy soldier's victims demand justice, but what of the path of corpses that your precious Spider walked over to get to you? Are they somehow less deserving of vindication? Or is it, perhaps, that your Spider is somehow more deserving of forgiveness because you prefer fixer-uppers that might end up in your bed? An utterly dull tale, that you seem to enjoy reliving."_ _With no response, she went on. "Go on then, act on that darker impulse, and be reborn as the_ effective _agent Fury always wanted."_

“NO!” Skye erupted, lunging ahead, only to be violently yanked into his steel-like body. She strove desperately to resist him, despite the futility, and thrashed her legs to kick until he tripped her forward. for restraint purposes. She landed on top of the impossible man, arms twisted behind her back, a knee digging into her legs with just enough pressure to keep her still.

She fought for air, gasping the word “no!” with pathetic desperation, Adrenaline sped up the untangling of strings, threading them through pieces of knowledge she already had- and connecting them to improve those ideas.

“Stop it, kid.” He hissed out, his mouth next to her ear, “I don’t want to break anything, but I’m not used to restraining someone so damn _tiny_.”

She wasn’t listening anymore, a string had loosed itself from the ball in her mind, and the riddles began to unravel. That was it! That was how the impossible was completely possible. She had been limiting everything into a container, isolating it, and trying to figure it out that way. How incredibly idiotic, and unlike her! Anyone with a half-a-brain for computer science understood that nothing, and no one, was ever truly isolated.

Out of habit, her fingers began to dance behind her back, and though they only touched air, she almost felt the keys below them, and heard that beautiful song they would make as everything came together. Russia. Brainwashing. Black Widow. The Red Room. Experimentation. And finally, the missing piece.....

 

_"Dragon, how do you think that Steve Rogers went from a shrimp to a super soldier?"_

_"I dunno," Mary-Sue told Miles over the phone, twisting the cord between her middle and forefinger, perched on the tall stool by the orphanage's community phone. She kept her voice low, as to not wake the nuns. She could only steal the phone at night to talk to her friend about their mutual interests in hacking.. If she got caught, she'd be back on probation The risk only added enjoyment to their late-night chats. "Steroids?"_

_"You're so young and naive." Miles Lydon, Mary-Sue decided, were infuriating. Still, it was thatargumentative personality which kept her interested in talking to him._

_"You have six months on me, jerk. What could have happened in those first six months of your life to give you such a dramatic edge?" She rolled her eyes, and shook her head a little. "Look, I'm riding the tide, just like you wanted, but this conspiracy theory stuff is kind of out there. Do I think the government is filled with a bunch of super-secretive tools, spying on us? Duh. But this crazy super powers thing you're talking about? And thinking he's still alive and that the government has him?"_

_"It's all real, trust me. Just do some research on Project Rebirth, and tell me what you find."_

 

  
She had done just that- and begrudgingly found herself agreeing with Miles. How could have Steve gained that much in size? The government had claimed all the photos of Steve from before the war had been doctored. However, expert Tide members disagreed, and Skye was definitely more willing to take their word, over the shady government's.

“You can’t kill him. You just can’t.”

“And why the hell not?”

“Because he’s Bucky Barnes!” The words left her mouth, only to be replaced by a foul taste. She coughed at it, as she was loosed from restraint to sink onto a seemingly immortal Bucky Barnes.

She heard the man behind her coughing violently, and when she twisted her body to get a look at him, he was dusted with tiny clouds of pink-hued smoke tumbling upwards from the floor, out of pinholes noticeable solely because of what poured out of them. Skye sucked in a breath and tried to hold it, only to fall into a fit of coughs instead.

 _“Oh drakonka,”_ but Skye could barely hear the words through her own hacking, and the heaviness mounting in her limbs and eye-lids. _“I underestimated what a clever little thing you are.”_ Her head began to get that tingling, full feeling, her chest tight and strained, as she fought with her nature to suck in a breath and keep it.

Skye watched Clint cough the word out, stumble to the side,a failing attempt to straighten himself and fight it, only to stumble to the other side. He grabbed onto the cage as their mobile prison took a sharp turn, and flung their loose bodies with it.

Skye did her best to protect the national treasure beneath her by spreading her body over him as a human shield. She hissed in the gas, then coughed it out; trying once again to slam her mouth shut.. The battle was already lost, although her inner-workings were slowed to the point of not really realizing that fact, as details of her surroundings faded. Her fellow prisoner’s coughing diminished, the cages around them blurred into becoming unrecognizable. She involuntarily slumped down next to Bucky, eyes drinking in the unclear visage of a childhood hero. Her mind was lulled from its explorations, those rational thoughts and fears disappearing in the clouds around her, so that it rested entirely on the immediacy of emotions evoked from what was within sight. She tried to blink away the fuzziness, and see Bucky’s face clearly, but her eyes began to flutter shut. A last gasp for air, from a body demanding oxygen., dissolved her coughs into smooth, easy breaths, and the fight to stay conscious and alert was finally completely lost.

A memory of an argument she had with a nun in first grade came floating forward; far clearer to her than her current surroundings, so much so that she felt a worn oak floor against her socks, and heard the tinkering of an old, and abused air conditioner.

_The black and white magazine clipping of Bucky Barnes, was framed in red, white, and blue painted popsicle sticks and felt lighter than it should have been in her hands. She was proud of her work, and knew that this time she was going to get an A on her project for school. As she showed it to Sister Bernadette, a frumpy woman with a long crooked nose, very angry black eyebrows, and a line for a mouth, Mary-Sue was smiling. For once she thought the woman would be impressed._

_Instead, the nun scoffed, “you picked Barnes over Captain Steve Rogers? He spent his life chasing skirts, and causing mischief. Oh never mind- of course you’d pick the cad. Well, you must learn a lesson- toss that away, and start one on Captain Rogers,he was an inherently good man, who thought of others above himself always. That is a true hero, and you’d do best to honor that.”_

_Anger bubbled up inside of her at the sheer stupidity of the woman, an anger that had earned Mary-Sue more trouble than it did get her out of it, and it was a feeling that Skye knew better than to succumb to. Mary-Sue, however, unleashed it in a biting tone....._

...but the words tumbled off of Skye’s lips, and into the ears of those around her barely conscious form.

"Captain America wouldn't agree. He saw a light in Bucky, and he'd be mad at you for not looking hard enough."

 

XXX

 

Putting on tactical gear that he hadn’t donned in years felt like shedding skin that had grown tight and uncomfortable; quite the opposite of what one might have expected him to feel. He had never thrown the old duds away, and consistently allowed the sci-tech division to upgrade it with the newest advancements, yet he had never bothered to have it tailored to his size since becoming Director. Subsequently their comfort, and perfect fit both astonished him, and put him at ease.

May drove as he severed all surveying equipment that would betray their mission to any person or thing outside of Agents May, Hartley, Klein, Hill, and his outside source hacking their way through information faster than anyone in SHIELD could have dreamed of. He, however, retained access to all SHIELD units and operatives in the area on the tablet in his hands, accessible through his retinal scan. It was the lone piece of equipment that could tap into the network of tracking devices within SHIELD vehicles; its existence was so classified that after their creator, Howard Stark, had died in a car accident, merely two living souls left knew of their existence. Himself, and the mechanic that installed them; Eric Koenig, who Fury had gone to great lengths to keep off of SHIELD’s grid. Should an agent, for whatever reason, disconnect their tracking device in a vehicle, Fury could still trace them with his own, embedded in the frame of the vehicle itself.

His controlling and secretive nature had always kept him estranged from the rest of mankind, leaving him with an incurable lonely, bitterness that gave him the jagged edges he was known for. He had never retained any lasting romantic entanglement that transcended physical pleasures to something more substantial, nor did he have friends with which he could share his burden. There were people whom he liked, who liked him; but no shoulder to help bear his burden.Not even Alexander would have understood, idealist that he was. That wedge that kept him disconnected, however, allowed him to maintain the autonomy necessary to sneak past red tape put up by council members whose wallets were larger than their minds. Still, he wished his life on no other, and despised the fact that one day his body would betray him, that age would best him, and he would have to choose an heir to his desolate throne. Who could he trust with such responsibility? Who could possibly embody both the morality to not be corrupted by the power he possessed, and the wisdom to set aside scruples and do what was required to keep _everyone_ safe?

Those were questions that usually swirled in his mind, being asked by ghosts of those innocents, who perished for the greater good because of _his_ orders.

The moment he slipped back into the gear he wore as a mere agent, the questions had been silenced though. He felt younger, and lighter again. It was almost….nice, and he was very close to not being enraged by the fact that the tracking system that genius Howard Stark himself created to be impossible to disengage, had somehow been shut down by the Black fucking Widow.

 _“North checked in.”_ Hartley’s voice came from the speakers so clearly that she might as well have been in the car with them. _“He was looking for you, and for the boy. I told him that you were engaged, the boy was taken care of, and ordered him to stay in the field- he seemed reluctant to follow that order, sir."_

Fury typed in a few commands so that North’s vehicle would show up on the map in front of him, “looks like he’s close to the motel we started at.”

“All units are supposed to be checking bus stations, airports, and highways.” Fury replied suspiciously.

_“That is exactly why I am reporting this information to you, sir.”_

“Good work.” Fury responded, fingers deftly moving across the screen of his tablet to call up North’s history, as well as all information on The Winter Soldier, and Karp; plugging them into the proper databases to find any possible connections. He then pulled up communications program, and put his finger to his lips as an order to May, before switching the channel on his communicator to North's vehicle. "Agent North, this is Director Fury. Is there new information to report?"

No answer.

He was about to open his mouth to bark an order at May, but she was already turning her car around to redirect them to where North’s vehicle was located.

He opened his encrypted messaging system, and sent his contact a request.

 **Dig up any information on North that you can, go as deep as possible**.

As always, the response was almost immediate and the black words he had typed into the blank white box were replaced.

**Rightey-oh, One-Eyed Wonder.**

Despite everything happening, Fury couldn't help it, the response brought a faint smile to his lips. He refrained from aknowledging it to the hacker though, and typed.

**It would be helpful if you started revealing the identities of the Rising Tide Members that we could not obtain.**

Three seconds passed.

**No can do. A girl's gotta a code to live by. You understand, of course.**

Fury glanced over at May, then back down at the computer. People change. They stretch the out the lines that they thought they wouldn't cross, before finally just ignoring them completely.

He grimaced, and pulled at the collar of his suit; accosted by the feeling that the gear hadn’t fit quite as well as he had first believed, suddenly strangled by it.

**XXX**

The agent had fired before any answer on her part could be given, telling Natasha all she needed to know about her current relationship with SHIELD. She was deemed too dangerous to be taken alive, a category that she grew accustomed to a long time ago, and allotted her with the wisdom to know his statements of leniency were an obvious lie.

After diving behind the car, she had immediately crawled to its underneath, used a laser to cut open the bottom silently, and set it on the seat, before crawling inside and waiting. She secured the walkie-talkie to the utility belt on her waste by loosening the strap, placing it inside, then tightening it back up.

She crouched low, positioned much like the spider they named her after, and focusing on footsteps. One set was closing in on the dumpster where Grant was. Natasha struggled to hear another set, but there was nothing.

Only one? To take her down?

Not just unlikely- absolutely impossible. They were coming at her some other way. Wall-scaling was her guess, since an air pursuit would give itself away with the sound of motors.

There was no time to wait and ascertain their location, it was more than possible they would take Ward out immediately, not looking before shooting, and thinking it was her. She used the laser to sever the door from the car, then used the center console as a push-off point, hurtling through the air, the door acting as a shield, and knocking the agent to the ground with it, before turning her body vertical mid air, landing on the door, and its victim who released a whooshing sound, and a pained groan. Any other sounds were drowned out by a hail of bullets raining down from above. Natasha twisted her body sideways to avoid them, grabbed Ward by the wrist, and slung him underneath the dumpster for protection. “Hold on!” She yelled to him, hoping against hope that he would understand her meaning, as she pulled out her Walther, shot off the brakes on the wheels, and the chain holding the lid in place. Natasha sent out a silent gratitutde to sci-tech's new silencer, a cut above any before it, she knew that without it, in the enclosed alley, both her ears, and Ward's, would be ringing for days. She wrapped chain around her body, from her left shoulder, between her breasts and around her tummy, then slammed her body into the dumpster to get it moving, the force sending angry vibrations through her body, while the chain pushed into her flesh, no doubt leaving a little chain link pattern of bruising. She brought the lid back to provide more cover, before sandwiching herself between her now transient shield, and immobile brick wall. Her palms were flat against the dumpster, her feet using the brick as a floor, running against it to keep them moving. The ear-shattering sounds of bullets lodging themselves into the metal that protected them kept her from knowing if Ward was being ripped apart beneath the dumpster, which was really the only part of this that left her uneasy. The action surrounding her was much more comforting than the moment before when she was about to blindly trust a stranger.

As they cleared the alley, she swung herself to the front of the dumpster, before dropping down to flatten herself against the ground, grabbing Ward who was a pancake against the bottom, pulling his back atop her, and then using her strength and bodyweight to roll them sideways just in time to avoid the latter set of wheels with their bodies. She whipped the chain off her, using it in a lasso-type fashion around the wheel, to stop their trashy shield, swung it around, and provide cover. She didn’t need to give Ward any kind of signal, he was already on his feet and dashing away from the scene, surprising her by having his arms still filled with the intel from the apartment, still filled with the scrap from apartment, while he stayed lined up with dumpster as he ran. He had the intelligence to dive behind a postal box, use it to obstruct their view as he snuck to the side of an SUV, evidently waiting for her. Natasha followed, pausing only to use her body to cover a man in his mid-thirties, eyes remarkably akin to a deer in the headlights, running him forward, and depositing him behind a car before disappearing from the street herself, passing Ward, and leading him from the SUV he was hiding behind, and using as cover, to the house to the right of the vehicle.

They dove beneath another barrage of gunfire to gain sanctuary by the wall of someone’s home. From there they took off at full speed, knitting through three of the neighboring residences, then doubling back to the first. She motioned to Grant to hide beneath the porch of the dilapidated remains of what once might have been a grand, expensive home, towering over the others. It's majestic beauty was marred by leaves crawling up it's rotting wood walls, and the yard looking as though it were a trash dump. To the normal person, it would be a disgrace to see such beauty wasted, but to Natasha, it was a cornucopia of places to hide.

Afterwards, when he was safe, she covered their tracks by running her hand through the grass, and finally crawled to where Grant was; all with a speed surprising even herself.

From the amount of gunfire, she knew there were at least five enemies, though she had only spotted two in gear thus far, meaning the others were in civilian attire, and therefore harder to discern. From their hiding spot, she hoped to make out the other shooters, and their faces, to see if she recognized any.

Beside her Ward was silent, aside from the heavy breathing from exertion and fear. He mirrored her crouching position, left leg stretched back, right leg tucked up, ready to propel the body forward. Her left hand was flat against the ground, her right gripping and aiming the gun, while his left hand clutched his now filthy shirt, using it as a kangaroo pouch to hold the tech she had trusted him with, and his right was on the ground, fingers flexing as though he were ready to make another quick sprint for freedom.

She heard running from the direction they had started before doubling back, but as far as she could tell, it was only two people using the deliberately quiet, and quick steps of a trained agent. There was room for error there, as the faint sounds of sirens from both police cars and ambulances ascended, inhibiting her abilities to discern sounds from each other.

The fact that she saw the set of blue jean clad legs, and black SHIELD-Issued boots, before hearing them, sent a surge of disappointment with her skills through her, but didn’t lengthen her reaction time.

She heaved forward, clasped her hands round his ankles and yanked his legs from beneath him. Ward pushed ahead at the same time, clamped a hand over the mouth of their victim, and helped her drag him under the porch.

There could be no inquisition, the noise would alert his colleagues in the area, so she slammed the butt of her gun into his head, and he slumped down. Ward lifted his hand away, now covered with blood- the bastard had bit him, and the kid hadn’t even flinched. She gave him an impressed smile in spite of herself, before patting down their new friend.

He was clad in crisp new blue jeans, and a neatly ironed red and white polo shirt. With his dirt-brown hair, bland boring features, and lack of a weapon, he could have passed for a civilian easy- except that underneath the clothing was SHIELD issued Kevlar over a hard, muscled body, and, of course, there were the black boots created for comfort, silence, protection, and equipped with several places to hide intel, and weapons, that she had immediately recognized earlier.

He had no forms of identification on him, no visible trackers, and only a comm unit that was attached to his ear. She immediately extracted it from him, and placed it on her own.

In her peripheral, she watched as Grant started stripping the man of his clothing, reaching the desired bullet-proof material underneath it, and changing into it as quickly and quietly as he could given their confines. Nudity never made _her_ uncomfortable, but she understood its significance to others, and so averted her gaze from him.

_“Amber street is clear. Moving West on Franklin. There are blues everywhere.”_

_“Copy that. Jenkins is moving West on Franklin. The police have already spread out through the area. What is your location James?”_

When she glanced back, Grant was changing into their victim's shoes.

_“East on School Street, towards Woodland Avenue. Permission to investigate possible SHIELD vehicle?”_

_“James is moving East on School Street to Woodland Avenue, and requesting permission to investigate a possible SHIELD vehicle_ There was a pause, _“permission granted.”_

_“Copy that.”_

A string of curses threatened to spill from her lips. They had located the SUV, which held a fair amount of supplies that she couldn’t really afford to be cut off from.

_“What is your location Krane?”_

_“Krane. State your location.”_

Natasha met Ward’s gaze from over the unconscious, now practically naked, body between them, and she nudged her head forward to indicate the direction they were about to head. He had put his own clothes over the stolen black gear, choosing blend in with civilians over appearing bad-ass. It was a pleasant surprise.

They had to move, and fast. It was unclear if Krane had a tracker on him, considering they were all specifying their location, yet at the same time that could be for the benefit of those on foot alone, and not the person calling the shots, who only one person seemed to have contact with.

She nodded at Ward, poking her head out to survey the environment, prior to motioning him to follow her as she weaved behind the porch, sticking to the wall, and then peering around the other corner of the house. Everything _seemed_ clear, but gunfire went off in the distance.

_“I’ve encountered enemy fire on Woodland- targets not visible.”_

_“All units to switch comm stations immediately.”_

_Damn_. Romanoff ripped the earpiece off as static replaced voices. “There are police everywhere, gunfire between our enemy and an unidentified enemy of theirs, right next to _our_ get-away vehicle. We still don’t know how many unfriendlies we have to evade; I've counted four more besides your wardrobe benefactor.” Romanoff informed him of their current predicament grimly, “isn’t today just _especially_ awesome?”

“Do we at least have the walkie-talkie?”

She slipped the object out from her belt, then tightened it back up- all the while not looking at her actions, and instead surveying their surroundings for threats. “Call us in, Ward.”

  
He took the comm unit from her hand, and she watched him look it over for a proper switch to use. at last he pressed the button Natasha had been directed to in order to receive the hologram image. “Grant Ward to the…Merry Men.” The last words came out haltingly aqs his brows joined together between squinted eyes.

 _“Good, you’re okay. Your vehicle has been secured.”_ There was a sharp intake, and long exhale of breath separating the sentences.

“How did you know which vehicle was ours?” Natasha demanded, grabbing the comm from Grant. Despite her misgivings she was already dashing towards their SUV, plotting a way to take the MerryMen out if need be.

_“Because we’ve been following you since you left the ambulance.”_

“No way.” She replied dispassionately, as they closed in on the vehicle, gleaming beneath the sun, as if surrounded by a halo of promise. “I would have spotted a tail.” Three more steps and they'd have it...

“I have my ways.” Came a cool a voice from behind.

Natasha turned around swinging towards the voice, hitting air instead and seeing only an empty space. Impossible. No one could have moved fast enough from where she had heard that sound, out of her sight.

The air in front of her, a hair beyond her reach, began to look as it would if it were above an extremely hot flame, waving what was laid beyond it, until there was a human being there. Natasha refrained from allowing the rattling notion of _invisible_ enemies, to delay her cursing the sheer ineptitude of not hearing an opponent approach her. _How could I have missed it? What is wrong with me? How am I ever going to get myself out of this mess, let alone keep Ward safe, find his friend, and rescue Clint, when I’m not even focused enough to hear an enemy behind me?_

Natasha was filled with a sense of foreboding.

One not even silenced by the solace, and familiarity of being on a mission.

**XXX**

_“There’s been an incident.”\_

Fury frowned at the uncharacteristically rigid tone in Hartley’s voice, and quickly glanced at May, whose expression mirrored his discernment. “What is it, Hartley?”

They circled the block where North’s vehicle was stationed, unable to get close due to the ever expanding number of authorities descending on the scene, and his desire for May, as well as himself, to remain incognito. There seemed to be no sign of North, the members of his team, or Romanoff anywhere.

_“There was an explosion inside Seattle, Washington’s Grand Dernier Hotel, which was hosting the Banquet celebrating our own Dr. Sternberg, less than 30 minutes ago. The banquet was completely wiped, as were the rooms above, and the boiler room below it, where the bomb had been located. Our people are on the scene.”_

“What the fuck?” Fury exploded, taken aback by the impossibility of that occurring, “do you mind telling me how the hell that would have happened, Agent Hartley, when my orders to that security detail, which makes the Whitehouse look as vulnerable as a town park, were that nothing better fucking happen to anyone in that mother fucking building?”

He expected silence, and instead received a rather waspish sounding retort; _“well gee, boss, considering I’ve been wrapped up in a computer science mystery that went south enough to have two of your most prized agents go missing; I just might not have the answer to that.”_

From his peripheral, he saw May mouth the word ‘wow,’ with wide eyes, and an expression full of concern for Hartley, instead of annoyance at her. A detail that a tiny, easily ignored voice in the back of his head, found reasonable considering how he had spoken to Hartley. However, the louder, angrier, more prominent voice, that was close to a panic attack over what the explosion could mean for the future of SHIELD, was what took hold of his vocal cords. “Well, I suggest you master the art of multi-tasking if you’re keen on keeping your position, Agent Hartley.” He seethed.

 _“And I suggest you watch how you talk to me considering that your running this investigation completely off the books, and under the noses of the Council that can hang your ass to dry,_ sir. _”_

May whistled, realized what she had done, and then snapped her mouth shut. He glared at her, but she pretended to ignore him by focusing on her driving.

Barton missing. Romanoff defecting. Now this?

He stifled his emotions, packing all of them away sans the pride holding a deserved apology hostage. “Agent Hartley-”

“North’s vehicle.” May interrupted, and Fury raised his head, spotting it on their left immediately. “No sign of North though.”

“Find a good place for us to park it, and remain inconspicuous.” He ordered, acting on his gut that something was very off when it came to Garrett’s right hand man. “His reporting back without requirement, and questions about the Senator’s son are suspicious. Since it’s the only lead we have right now, might as well follow it.” He must have sounded calmer, because May visibly relaxed after his direction. “Agent Hartley, tell me what you know about the explosions, and skip the scenes from the last, okay? I’d be a piss poor director if I wasn’t aware that the banquet was _really_ a meeting of the minds for the who’s who of fringe scientists, looking to scratch out the ‘fi,’ from ‘sci-fi.’ Okay? Start with the doctors from SHIELD, our head of sci-tech, Dr. Sternberg, and Dr. Grigor, who he recentlynamed as his choice to follow him when he retired, then continue on to other items regarding the explosions that you deem the most integral, and work your way down.”

May smoothly put the car into park, “I can do some investigating on foot, regarding the missing agents, sir."

He nodded at her, and she exited the vehicle, going around to the back and opening it. He watched in the rearview as she pulled out a pair of jeans, and as he realized that she was about to change clothes, he flicked the mirror to look elsewhere, and climbed over the center console to take the wheel, in case he had to move fast. He settled himself as Hartley gave her debrief, showing no annoyance regarding their earlier clash.

_“Documentation indicated that Sternberg boarded the private jet he was assigned, and arrived promptly at the Dernier hotel on time. His head of security detail, Agents Jozwick, and direct subordinate, Agent D’Angelo, continuously reported in to Agent Hand as ordered. Until the moment of the explosion there was no indication of suspicious activity, outside of Dr. Grigor not arriving with Sternberg to the jet. Sternberg reported that Grigor had a family emergency, and would have to arrive the banquet tardy. He assured Sternberg that he would make his own arrangements regarding transportation, and security. Sternberg’s tracker, as well as Jozwick’s indicate that both men were in the lobby at the time of the explosion. D’Angelo’s tracker showed him to be outside, as he was directed to be by Jozwick. However, D’Angelo’s tracker has gone off the radar, and there has been no contact with him since the explosion.”_

The bad news was piling up, and Fury steeled himself against it. Sternberg had not just been in command of Fury’s most promising project, but a man of integrity, and principle that Fury admired; a man that Fury felt he could _nearly_ trust. However, mourning would have to come later, like always. “I want undercover agents in the fire department, police department, and EMT at ground zero, immediately.”

 _“That was already put into play sir, the moment I was alerted to the situation- though two of the agents in the area, first reporting to the scene, were pretty green. Agent Morse, who I can personally vouch for, as we were recently partnered up for her first undercover ops, was on airport security, that you had originally intended for Klein, is posing as FBI- ironic considering you stole her from the Bureau in the first place. The second is Coulson’s specialist, Agent Amador, who I’ve heard is a damn brilliant asset, just not interested in becoming Miss Congeniality is the near future. She’s acting as an EMT with Agent Sitwell, who was already there on security detail. Hand is sending her teacher’s pets in, Pims and Kerrowitz. The former as police, the latter as a fireman- and Hand promised me pics, because I cannot express how interested I am in seeing that sexy man in firefighter attire and- oh, um.”_ She interrupted herself with a fake cough far too late to spare her embarrassment. He overlooked it though, because of his being an ass to her earlier. Besides, Hand believed Hartley’s inherent informal nature to be her greatest asset undercover, and Barton had once said much the same, claiming that “she couldn’t hold a professional air for longer than a day, which is only two more hours than I can, not that anyone’s keeping score. But it’s that natural part of her that lets her fit in with criminals, and makes them trust her. No one can see Hartley as part of some agency like the CIA, FBI, or us. It’s just not in her nature.” IT was a memorable moment, as tt was that agreed upon assessment by polar opposites Hand and Barton. It took Hartley from the list of people in the Academy who wouldn’t be joining SHIELD, to the elite list of future agents destined for long-term under cover gigs.

He’d be an idiot for chastising her greatest asset for a third time in the span of twenty minutes, especially when she had been on her best behavior until he lost his cool.

When she realized that she was not about to get her head bitten off, she went on. _“Morse is reporting directly to me, the rest to Hand who is keeping me up-to-date.”_

“And who is looking for the missing Dr. Grigor.”

_“Permission to assign Agent Alphonso Mackenzie.”_

The name rang a bell, but he couldn’t quite place why, but the fact that this was first time she asked permission to put an agent on a detail since the explosion was enough to give him pause. “Why did you choose him?”

“He’s a top notch agent, and he’s extremely familiar with Dr. Grigor’s life.”

After she connected the dots for him, his memory was triggered, and Fury grimaced. “Hartley, if by extremely familiar, you mean the fact that Mackenzie was thrown out of STRIKE, and put on suspension for out and out _stalking_ -”

 _“Trumped up charges.”_ Hartley interrupted quickly, _“Mack simply launched his personal, private investigation, using no SHIELD resources, and defying no explicitly stated protocols, under the suspicion that Dr. Grigor was kidnapping runaway youths for human experimentation. That egotistical idiot Rumlow twisted the whole thing in favor of his dear doctor friend, to get Mack off his team so that he could replace him with his own pet. I went through the stupid proper channels that stupid people put in place to contest the charges brought against Mack, but they went exactly nowhere, because Rumlow is a corrupt piece of shit, who blatantly takes care of his friends before anyone else, which would be fine, if they were good at their damn jobs, and not incompetent morons who nearly got me made, or killed, at least four times in the year that I worked for that godforsaken team you all seem to think is the end all, be all of-”_

“Tell me how you really feel, Hartley.” Fury responded dryly, practically forgetting how fucked they all were by the tirade he believed might never end.

_“I’ll do you one better. You want Grigor found? Who do you think is going to try harder to do that than the man who needs him alive so that his name can get cleared? Give him the incentive that SHIELD will look into Grigor as well, and I guarantee that Mack will find him faster than any other agent you'd put on the job."_

“Fine. Send him out, but not alone. Okay? His desire to clear his name could easily become a vendetta where Grigor ends up a corpse. Pick an agent you believe you can trust.”

_“Copy that, sir.”_

"And check any connections between anyone or anything regarding that explosion, and our 'computer science mystery that's gone south.'"  He mimicked her earlier statement, a note higher above his normal speaking tone.

She chuckled, _“I take back almost all the nasty things I’ve said about you, sir.”_

**XXX**

Grant was incredulous.

It was the woman from the ambulance, her already perceived elegance escalating from being sheathed in form-fitting black clothing, almost mirroring what Romanoff had been wearing before she had softened her image with a sweatshirt.

And she had been _invisible!_

While the women leveled each other with deadly, distrusting glares, Grant felt all the danger of his circumstance, and the sheer hysteria of Skye’s position melt away in favor of his tender age. “How did you _do_ that?”

She ignored him, “we have to go _now_.” Her words were directed at Romanoff, and she spoke the way that Grant recalled his mother speaking to CEOs and other senators over the phone while tending to her father’s affairs. It sent a shiver up his spine, and he did his best to quell it.

Romanoff gestured to the woman, silently telling her to get into the driver's seat, then to Grant to the passenger’s side with a swift swish of her hand before she climbed into the back.

Grant dropped the pile of stolen goods in his own lap as he settled in, and the vehicle was already moving before he had a chance to shut the door completely. He was trying to do a quick inventory of the goods he had been charged with, and immediately noted that the hard drive was missing. Swallowing panic, his eyes flew up to Romanoff whose eyes widened a hair, then narrowed. He wasn't sure how to convey to her that he understood without a nod, which would give away the silent communication. Spy stuff, Grant decided, was hard.

The woman driving swung the wheel completely to the right, floored the vehicle over the curb, between two houses, into a busy street and then turned the entire vehicle around, while weaving between cars. She made a sharp left into an alley before suddenly shifting gears with an entirely casual, and legal right onto a main street, thus varying her piloting skills into the mode of someone taking a nice Sunday drive with her family. He watched her carefully as she maneuvered the vehicle, awed by her lack of emotional response to any on it. “Things have changed drastically.” She told them in the same clipped voice that made her seem accustomed to being obeyed, “we’re heading to base.”

“No!” The cry came out before both his self-control, or survival instinct could stop it. “We have to find _Skye!_ ”

“Ward is correct.” Romanoff agreed, but with none of his sentiments behind her words. “Statistically speaking, the longer she is missing, the less likely finding her becomes.”

“I am aware.” Robbie replied, making another left, “and Scarlett has not only tagged the vehicle, but is tailing them personally. The mark will not be lost. It is important to understand that we are not properly equipped to engage the enemy, let alone attempt an extraction.”

Grant glanced back at Romanoff, who simply gave a nod, “something tells me we need more than equipment.” She responded dryly, and seemed almost comforted by this woman’s lack of recklessness.

Robbie nodded, “exactly, Agent Romanoff. Although, I suspect now it is simply Romanoff.” Listening to the two women felt like listening to a conversation between robots, and that was almost comforting considering the rage, and extreme emotions he grew up with. Still, the way in which their driver held herself, and the air of authority about her felt too akin to his mother for him to be at ease. That, and of course, the small notion that he could be killed at any moment. "We'll need supplies, among other things."

His heart sank, because he knew that if they found anything resembling a safe haven, he was going to be locked away there, while they searched for his friend.

He couldn’t let that happen- because as helpful and noble as Romanoff seemed to be, and as much as Skye seemed to think that the Merry Men were on her side; Grant still didn’t trust them without his supervision, not 100%. He didn’t care how hot Romanoff was, or that humming of attraction that he felt for her- Skye was more important to him than a stupid crush. Grant reached into his pocket, pulling out the picture of the two of them from the photo booth, and unfolding it to see her goofy grin. He saw none of the shadows and secrets behind her eyes that he did behind Romanoff’s, or Robbie’s, and none of the malice that hardened the features of his brother and mother. It was more than that with Skye though, because there had been people who had tried to reach out to him, friendly faces with good intentions; and he had never trusted a single one. Skye, however, did the impossible in less than a month; she earned his confidence. No one had before, and as willing as he was to trust Romanoff, no one had since.

“We’ll find her.” Robbie assured him, noticing how hard he was staring at her picture, most likely.

What if they took her, and did something terrible to her? What if they made it so he never saw her again? A muscle along his jaw line ticked involuntarily as unwanted images of her being tortured bubbled up. He immediately tried to reign in his emotions but found himself deficient in that skill as the images of her in the well instead of Thomas were next to rise to the surface of his introspections

When he looked back at Robbie,all he could suddenly see were parallels between she and his mother. They were both so poised, so elegant, so self-assured- as though they were born to command the entire world, and no doubt, would one day. An internal shudder went through him. Next he glanced at Romanoff, who he felt more of a connection to. Like him, she wanted her partner back…

But what if she was lying? What if it was all a charade?

The trust that had guided him mere moments before was vanishing under the alarm of being left behind, and never seeing Skye again, of leaving her in that well....

Skye was no match for someone who could make themselves invisible, or a super spy agent who, by her own admission, had hands covered in blood. For that matter, neither was he. _I need a plan,_ he thought grimly, _no, I need a miracle._

Neither seemed likely.

“Lee suggested that I work on building trust while in transit to the base. My name is Dr. Antoinette Gabriella Jones; aka Robbie Hood, Head of the Merry Men unit. It belongs to a network of organizations created to protect the freedom and human rights of civilians.”

Grant repeated the statement silently to himself, finding sense in the Merry Men working with Rising Tide, since freedom and truth seemed to go hand in hand; nevertheless, it was her name that really sent a series of bells ringing inside his mind. “Gabriella Jones? As in- Gabriel Jones- Gabe Jones- The Howling Commando?”

She simply dipped her head in confirmation "You must be a history buff. Nicely done, son. Yes. He's my father. The founders of the Merry Men are Gabriel Jones, Maria Stark, and Peggy Carter.”

The side of his mouth quirked; “everyone knows who your dad is, but not everyone knows what this Merry Men thing is.”

Natasha gave no intimation of agreeing, or disagreeing, her eyes taking in everything and giving nothing in return, but somehow Grant understood that her silence was an order for him to occupy the agent, while she assessed. It wasn’t a role that he felt familiar or comfortable with, as the art of conversation was never something he felt the need to practice, and his unease was only amplified by his earlier realization that he would, soon, be actively working against her to find Skye before she did. “I told you, we supervise government agencies to ensure the safety of civilians.”

“Yeah, but how did it even start? I mean, that kind of thing takes a lot of money, right?” He began sorting through the scrap that started to slope down his thighs, and onto the seat between them. Curiously flicking switches on what he believed to be a bug, next turning over a CD in his hands, looking for a label of some kind.

She gave him a sideways glance, then drew her eyes back onto the road. “In the late 60’s Director Peggy Carter found herself growing increasingly concerned that SHIELD had been hasty in their decision to utilize the skills of former HYDRA scientists, and bring them into the fold. It was quite possible those men weren’t as reformed as many of her peers believed them to be.” Robbie explained, although it seemed to Grant that the words were being wrenched out of her, and being talkative was just as alien to her, as it was to him. The command and strength in her voice was lost in simple conversation, . That was some relief since his mother’s speech was always fluid, as she charmed and dazzled whatever audience gathered about her, it lessened his unease to disconnect this woman from the stuff his nightmares were made of. “She was unsure of who to voice her worries to, as Howard Stark was becoming increasingly unstable and secretive. Instead she went to his wife, and her long-time friend, Maria Stark. The two discussed Peggy’s thoughts, and Maria felt that Peggy’s apprehensions were logical. She siphoned money from Stark’s fortune, and then tapped my father, Gabe, to use the capitol and start a foundation for medical research and assistance.” Grant was no expert on Gabe Jones, but the Ella Foundation, so named for both his mother and sister, was prided as one of the country’s most successful charities. “My father was the obvious choice, since he had lost both a sister, and a mother, to cancer, and besides that; there had been rumors that Gabe had actually amassed a fortune of his own in his many travels to foreign countries- they vastly overestimated my father’s ability to spend his money wisely, for the record.” A sparkle touched her previously dull eyes, as if enjoying a joke, before dimming once again.

“But it was a front for the Merry Men?” Grant concluded, still examining his bounty of techno-junk.

She nodded, “yes, and it was a good front. For instance, since it was research based, no one gave a second thought to all the medical and technological information and supplies it stockpiled, nor the tremendous amounts of energy it utilized. The studies they often required volunteers, and so the constant ebb and flow of people coming in and out seemed logical as well. Up to and including the rather high-profile legal firm the foundation hired in case of malpractice suits, and the like. Doctor-patient confidentiality explained away a state-of-the-art security system, that not even the government seemed to be able to crack. After all, the strides they were making in the medical field could be utilized by other countries trying to steal their secrets, they were doing their civic duty by safe-guarding their work. Their charitable program, the Doctors without Borders program allowed movement around the world without drawing suspicion.”

Grant was awestruck by the logic used to facilitate this watchdog team, but it wasn’t an entirely positive reaction. He had anticipated a small group, or militia, not a quite so well-funded and extensive organization. The words medical facility also raised a bunch of red flags, reminding him of Skye’s Rising Tide stories of people experimenting on others to give them super powers, like Captain America, or brainwash them, like the CIA had tried to do on several occasions. Determination kept him from swallowing nervously, and giving away his compounding distrust. Even if he managed to get some distance from this group, how could he continue to keep Skye secure? The silent question returned Romanoff’s ominous warning that Skye would never be safe again to the forefront of his mind. Regardless, he forcibly returned his attention to the listening device, and flipped it on, before returning it to the pile, and then flicking his finger against an ambiguous steel box with absolutely no markings on it. “It seems complicated though, faking all that. Eventually people would want to see some kind of progress being made, especially if people were giving you guys money.” He ran a finger along the small ear piece that held similar markings as the bug. _Bingo_. He felt a small sense of triumph.

“It wasn’t all just subterfuge. Some of those that went were actually doctors, completely unaware of any ulterior motives, and solely devoted to the betterment of mankind. My father ensured that _real_ help was provided to those in need, and that advancements in medicine were a priority for the Ella Foundation; and every single penny donated by outside sources went to that cause. That was his priority in the deal, and why he agreed to assist Peggy, because it allowed him to help people.” Speaking seemed to come easier for her as she went on, but still nowhere near as musical as his mother's voice. “It also allowed him to assist in the civil rights movement- and since everyone was so focused on his race, and trying to discredit him personally and financially, not a lot of people really dug deep into everything that was being researched.”

Grant found himself coming up with questions much faster than anticipated, and it almost caught him off guard. He had never found conversation this simple in the past, his mind had always been too busy trying to work out what might set the other person off. “So behind the scenes?”

“Behind the scenes Peggy brought in the scant few that she trusted- and resolved to keep the operation very tight-knit and small, while Maria continued to work on the financial sustainability of the Ella Foundation’s dual purpose.” This operation didn't sound small to him, but he didn't voice the inconsistency.

“So what did they actually do though?” Grant wanted to know. Despite wanting to check Romanoff’s expression, he refrained. The less attention brought to her, the more comfortable for both Robbie and Romanoff. If he pleased Romanoff enough, she might drop him from her attention, focusing all her mental faculties on the possible threat. “How did they spy on the government?”

“The same way the government spies on its people.” She answered, “tapping phone lines, bugging offices, planting infiltrators.”

“And what did they find out?” His eyes moved to the door and the handle finding it unlocked.

“Not much at first- they found some traitors and corruption in the official government agencies- but nothing of the sort in SHIELD. For three years they came up with nothing, and had plans on pulling the plug on the Foundation’s second purpose. Then, however, Maria came across the index.”

“The index?” He covertly slipped the device between the seat and the door.

She nodded, “Howard was using SHIELD and its resources to keep track of notable people- from exceptional espionage agents, to genius scientists, and even some proposed to have…inhuman abilities. He hadn’t shared that information with Peggy though, nor with his own wife; there was evidence that he had enlisted several agents in SHIELD to assist him though. When she confronted him, he defended that they were all criminals, or _potential_ criminals.”

He decided to hit her with a curve ball, “is that why you want Skye? Because you think she has some of these special skills?”

“Skye’s story is not mine to tell, she is Avery’s.”

“Are you one of those people? Is that why you can turn invisible?” She didn’t even bother looking at him. “Okay then, did Carter argue with Stark?”

“Of course. She tried to make him see reason; after all, many of the names on his list showed only weak evidence of a future as a criminal. He promised to scrub the list- and after that he began experiencing startling mood swings, which then became binge drinking- he’d have probably never seen reason at all if hadn’t been for Uncle-“ The sudden stop of her sentence made Grant believe she was about to give some important secret away, but quickly he realized that her attention was listening to something else. She glanced at him, then motioned her head back at Romanoff as well. “The van that has Skye stopped at a car wash, where it stayed halted for about thirty minutes. No visual confirmation of what occurred during that period could be made. However, the driver has been ID’d as Yelena Bolova.” She glanced over her shoulder, then returned to looking at the road. “You have any ideas on why your old comrade just emerged in the field, after such a long absence?"

After a stretch, Grant began to wonder if Romanoff was even going to answer; and the anticipation was like sandpaper against his frayed nerves.

“I’m more concerned on how one of yours could ID her,” Was the cool response, “only a select few can claim to know her face, and that assertion is usually the very last one ever heard by them.”

“We have our sources.” Robbie replied cryptically.

Grant side-eyed her, but this time didn’t ask a question and let Romanoff’s cold silence envelope them all, until she decided to end it.

Instead, Robbie did. “We’re almost there.”

“Good.” Romanoff answered, “Ward, could you peel that disk off the dash, and hand it to me, please?” She asked, “it’s the good-luck charm Barton gave me when I became a SHIELD agent.” Grant reached over towards the driver’s side and peeled it off, then handed it to her, hoping for some sign as what he should be trying to accomplish from her expression, but was instead met with indifference He sighed, turned back around, and looked out the window. “After we drop Ward off, and equip ourselves; we should head to the Boston Ballet. Belova isn’t here for Skye, she’s here for me. So she would have stashed the girl there.”

Grant didn’t hesitate, his worry over arriving at their destination before he could escape overriding any kind of logic. He swung the door of the moving SUV open, and dropped onto the road rolling. The thud of the pavement against his shoulders and hip sent waves of pain through him, but he ignored it and sprang to a squatting position, before he took off running without a glance back. He veered right, between the trees and into a park, where he knew a vehicle couldn’t follow, ignoring the strange looks from mothers with their strollers, and joggers who were slowing to gawk at the nutjob.

He heard the quick steps behind him before the shock of a hand touching the small of his back startled him. “Go! Keep running!” It was Romanoff’s voice in a hiss in his ear before passing him and motioning for him to follow her. She had on his backpack, and when she shrugged it off to hand it to him, he realized Skye’s had been underneath it.

He threw the pack on, feet still pounding the pavement; “But-”

She grabbed his arm, swung him ahead, then sideways into another path- where he was suddenly playing chicken with a bicyclist in deep blue spandex who was racing at Grant like he was the one being chased. Grant stepped out of the way, colliding with Romanoff, just as the man whizzed by, his air ruffling the two he almost flattened. Undaunted, Romanoff was crowding him to urge him down the path, “keep going. Keep going, she can’t be far behind. For the record, I wasn’t going to leave you behind”

He started a quick jog after her, regardless of his sore and achy muscles that desired nothing more than rest, and his panicked mind demanding to know if she somehow could read minds. “What the-”

“I don’t trust them.” She stayed right behind him, pushing at his back to cut through another mess of trees. “They gave us all history, no current information, and from the sounds of it, they are a larger organization then they let on.”

His lungs hated him, almost as much as his legs, but he still found enough oxygen to speak. “I…thought….so…too.”

“And with Belova in the mix, that changes things.” The tress broke apart for another path, and she practically shoved him onto it, interrupting his silent awe of how she was barely breathless at all.

 

As his feet touched the pavement, he found himself surrounded by group of college-age looking kids. Romanoff was behind him instantly. At first they seemed alarmed by the new presence, both slightly winded and sweaty. Hormones won out over caution quickly, as Grant could actually see when they realized that Romanoff was the hottest thing on two legs. “I think an angel just fell.” Joked a chubby blonde with under his left arm. He looked out of place in his dressy button down shirt and black slacks, among his casually clothed comrades.

“Hey sexy, what are you doing with a kid like that, when you can have a real man?” Cooed a rather stocky brunette in a red sox hat, a white T-shirt, and jeans.

Something0 flashed in Romanoff’s eyes, leading Grant to believe that cat caller was in for some serious regret, but the moment passed, and she smiled sweetly. “Don’t talk about my brother like that, it isn’t nice.” She raised her tone an octave than normal, and leaned into him. Grant recognized it immediately as how she had first spoken to him when he had been conversing with the charismatic SHIELD agent. “But I will let you make it up to me if you let him wear your hat. He’s a huge Red Sox fan.”

He grinned droopily at her, and Ward found himself both annoyed with the guy's idiocy, as well as his own from when he had first met Romanoff, and fell for the same technique. Then again, he doubted anyone had a chance against this woman. She really was the total package. Grant felt the hat being pressed upon his head, and he immediately dipped the brim down deeper and gave an idiotic smile.

“Happy to do it.” The guy’s shoulder’s straightened out, as one of his friends jabbed him in the ribs.

Romanoff winked, “now which one of you fine gentleman can direct me to a nice private locale?”

**XXX**

Skye jerked awake, eyes snapping open, heart thundering into quick, angry beats, vacuuming in lung full after lung full of clean, precious air. Natural, dusky sunlight poured over her, air streams from an ajar window lapped at her face, and made her long brown locks dance. Her tongue was thick and heavy in her dry mouth, reminiscent of when she broke her arm in three places, and woke up from the emergency surgery required to make her whole again.

 _I’m in a car_ , her senses told her before the sluggish rate of her mind could catch up and realize that it was, in fact, a van, not a car. The van that she had been caged in the back of?

But why wasn’t she there anymore?

She wanted to move her head, tilt it to the left so she could see who was driving; however, her body was slow to obey. She tried to move her left arm, but to no avail; maybe something smaller, like a finger...

She felt it tap against the side of her right thigh. _Yes_. She had movement. It was a small accomplishment but a victory nonetheless. Why was she so muddled? _I was_ _drugged_. Just like when she came to from surgery, it had taken the anesthetic time to wear off. _The smoke- was it laughing gas?_

“Rise and shine, _drakonka_.” That chantlike not-quite-sane lilt transcended voice disguisers apparently, and cut through the fog of Skye’s mind like butter to remind her that things just kept getting worse. Coherency, however, was coming with the hefty price tag of a throbbing ache at her temples. Using a tremendous amount of effort, Skye was able to turn her neck so that her gaze moved from the grassy terrain by the road they were on, to who was navigating them on it. She wasn’t sure what she expected really, maybe some wild-haired maniac with a vacant smile, and wide, glinting eyes, or at least some outward indication of the madness Skye had sensed in her words and tone. Instead sat a perfectly coiffed, and meticulously put together woman with steady hands on the steering wheel, and a knowing, cunning smirk on her lips; not at all some childish lunatic painted by her earlier rhetoric. Was that an act? Or was this? “Initially search your surroundings for the following: weapons and exits- both conventional, and unconventional. You would be surprised by what you can harm another with, and what spaces your body can actually fit through.” The woman instructed, all traces of madness from her intonations suddenly transformed into that of a patient elementary school teacher. “Those windows, for instance, if not reinforced to prevent damage, is a weapon even prior to shattering, by simply slamming the enemy’s head into it- and if done with ample gusto, then it can be an exit if you’ve used enough force to shatter the surface. Notice, it is slightly ajar, is there a way to roll it down? If not, do you have the strength to push it down yourself?" ” Skye doubted that the window was anything but completely bullet-proof, and that was really the only exit she could fathom, as there was no sun roof, nor a handle on her door.

“Who…” The word was slurred, even to her own ears, but she pressed on anyway, “are-”

“Who am I?” She asked, relieving Skye of the chore that speech had become. “That’s third on your list of inventory when in a position such as yours. Your second point of interest is who you are, and what you are currently capable of. You’ve been drugged, so your mind and body are operating at slower, weaker speeds than normal. This has to be taken into account, as well as predicting your recovery time. Timing- that is always important. Never, ever forget that. So, now that you’ve decided on weapons, and exits, you must time them for when you can actually attain the goal. Only then does your captor, in this case me, become important. Do not ask me though, study me instead. What does my body language tell you? My speech? My accentuations? My posturing? These can indicate physicality, intelligence, background, motivation, and thus tell you what kind of threat I present to you, and how you are best equipped to engage it. When you’re advanced enough you’ll be able to accomplish these three first steps simultaneously and have an exit strategy in mere moments.”

Skye’s head was spinning with this woman’s capricious nature, and deceptive helpfulness- but it was nothing compared to the agonizing throbbing of her migraine.

The woman continued her diatribe, “you already seem to possess an innate ability to read people- though it isn’t on any kind of conscious level. For you it probably feels like a sixth-sense, if you even realize your ability at all, and is utilized when meeting blank-slates, or rather, strangers that you have zero prior knowledge of. I predict that if you are given information on a person, however, you shut that instinct off, or ignore it. That particularly harmful attribute will have to be unlearned, and because of your age and ability, I sincerely feel that it can be.” She sighed, “but all that will come with time- back to your question. Who am I? Well, in truth, it really depends on who you ask, doesn’t it?"

Nausea came over Skye in waves, and she heaved, though nothing came of it.

The driver was unperturbed. “I’ve noticed that you have that same problem. If I were to ask those nuns of yours back home, they’d say you were Mary-Sue Poots, an ungrateful mischief-maker of the highest caliber, a true disappointment. If I inquired about you to your little online community of rabble-rousers, you would be PeskyDragon, an up-and-coming hero to the masses, freeing information from a shadowy government who wishes to keep their populace uninformed and complacent. Should I probe your gallant knight in shining armor, he would insist that your name is Skye, the sweet kid with a heart of gold giving him a second chance at playing hero.” She chuckled, “are any of those completely right though? Are any of them entirely wrong?”

Great, her captor was a fan of the shrink babble, and political double-speak, because being her kidnapper wasn't bad enough. She suddenly missed having guns pointed at her- at least then she had an accurate view of where she stood, even if it was precariously close to having her first date be with the grim reaper.

“Not an answer.” Skye hoped the pauses between the words were not quite as lengthy as they felt. Her sight, however, had refocused to take in the driver of this van of kidnappers. She was beautiful, but in the blandest of ways, as the attractiveness was reliant solely on symmetrical facial features, and an athletic build. Skye had the feeling that the moment she turned away from the woman’s face, she would find it difficult to reconstruct the features in her mind. Experimentally, Skye did so, encouraged by the physical action feeling easier than the first attempt, and only then tried to find the words to describe the woman, or picture her face again with little success. The only distinctive qualities that could be mustered seemed to be red hair, and light-colored eyes. If those changed, Skye wondered if she could ever pick this woman out of a crowd again.

It seemed her most remarkable quality was her lack of one.

An amused chuckle interrupted Skye’s inner musings, “but it is. Really, what you want to know is who am I... to you, why I would kidnap you, and what I want from you. This gives you the most pertinent information on survival. Your life-expectancy, and the odds of your escape, for instance, drastically increase if I have taken you for your skill set. If I need you to perform a task, then you’ll most likely have enough mobility and freedom to gather weapons, and time to use them. If you’ve been taken for intel, depending on your ability to withstand torture, you lose the mobility, but time is still on your side." She glanced over, and gave a casual smile. "You may call me Yelena, as it is my preferred moniker, and the one I would ask a friend to use. Tell me, have you thought of a means to escape yet?”

Skye refused to answer her question, and mentally balked at the word friend. She didn’t understand this woman at all, and she did not get the strange set of comfort that she did from the agent in the back, or the man formerly known as Bucky Barnes- she was too transient, too difficult to pin down. As if she could be anyone, or no one.

“Good.” She seemed pleased by the lack of an answer. “You haven’t though, I know it- because I have ensured that there isn’t- and I am the best. Do you doubt that I am the best?”

Skye did, but only because she questioned the woman’s sanity, not her ability. She knew better than to vocalize it though. She just nodded assent.

“You’re lying- but that’s okay. I’m not bitter.” She replied, “it would be hypocritical of me to be, since up until about two hours ago, I figured you for a gullible flake with a knack for programming, living on luck that was probably going to run out shortly.” The admission had a flavor of loathing to it, which Skye, surprisingly, felt sure was directed inward. “I could see why Garrett dismissed you outright for your companion, who showed far more promise in our line of work.”

“Kidnapping?” So someone that she worked with wanted Grant to train him which bolstered Skye’s hope that he was, in fact, alive.

“Sometimes. It umbrellas many services, really.” She tempered easily, ignoring the hatred in Skye’s utterance. “At the end of the day though, Garrett is going to make your friend into his own special weapon, into a killer; it’s not written in stone yet, of course, he can still be saved, and given a real chance at a normal life. At the moment, however, he’s on a direct path to becoming exactly what Garrett saw in him. What neither of us initially saw in you. Karp did, of course. He has a knack for that though, a real skill.," Yelena glanced over again, and her expression was so friendly, that Skye almost wanted to fall for it, just to quell the endless terror. "Garrett has an excuse for his oversight; men often disregard women outright, for most of them it isn’t even a conscious decision- but me? I was simply being foolish, and should have known better. You're bravery with the men in the back was to be applauded, but your cleverness, and ability to think outside the box by correctly identifying Barnes- now that was what sold me"

The impossible _was_ possible. A part of Skye's heart soared at the idea of Bucky Barnes being alive, but then plummeted quickly after at the realization of what his existence suggested that he endured.

"Now, I’ve given you a breadth of information, both implicitly, and explicitly through my monologues. Tell me what you know about me. Think hard about it, please, and ask yourself the right questions.”

Skye tried to think back to what questions this woman had already given her- but found herself coming up empty and panicky of that. This woman was waiting to be impressed, and Skye had a feeling her life depended on fulfilling the desire. Skye thought back to how the woman suggested that she innately read people, without having to consciously think about it.

She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pushed away all the pre-conceived thoughts she had about this woman before entering the cabin of the van, and the fear that Skye’s life was hanging in the balance of this. Yet the terror pushed back, and once more she felt at a loss. This capricious woman was a mass of contradicting personality traits...

Skye cleared her throat, still uncomfortable from dehydration, and the headache; although she was feeling more like herself than only five minutes earlier. What drug worked like that? She wondered for half of a breath, before dismissing it; why bother dwelling on something she couldn’t figure out? She knew nothing about drugs beyond smoking pot with one of her foster brothers once to prove that she wasn’t a baby.

 _You can do this. You have to do this. You need to get out of all of this, because Grant might be alive, and he might need your help._ She ordered to herself, shutting up the distractions that were obstructing her usual prowess when it came to solving puzzles.

Once again she felt herself pulling at one of the threads inside her mind, and she tried to speak, but found the words cracking from a dry throat and swollen tongue.

Yelena glanced sideways at her, and then reached between the door and the seat, pulling out a bottle of water. She opened it with one hand, next she handed it to Skye, who used what little she had of mounting energy to take it, and press it to her lips. “Sip first.” She ordered, “or you’ll make yourself sick.”

Skye obeyed, despite the deep pull to gulp it down in giant swallows and satiate an implacable thirst.

Slowly, as her mind calculated what to say, Skye sipped again. When she opened her mouth once more, the words escaped “You’re nobody.”

The smile that drew at the red-head’s lips was one of bitterness, and for a moment Skye felt a flash of alarm that her answer had hit a very raw nerve.

“Well done,” she praised as if she was a mother speaking to a daughter who had cleaned up all of her toys, “and what would Nobody want from Mary-Sue, or is it PeskyDragon, or is it Skye?”

Skye looked away, so that the woman didn’t have the satisfaction of seeing the tears spilling down her face- they surprised Skye, she didn’t even think she had any left.

Whoever had originally given orders to have her taken, was no longer in control. Skye had figured that out before she had been drugged, and this woman had outright stated that Skye was overlooked in favor of Grant time and again. That had changed, and now Skye found herself being spoken to as though she were in a desk, with a note-pad in front of her. “You want to make me nobody too.”

“Shhhhh. Don’t tell. They’d banish us, you know.” A childish giggle followed the woman’s words. Skye never thought such a genuine a smile could make her quite so uncomfortable, but as her lips stretched over perfect, white teeth, and eyes sparkled with anticipation, Skye felt like hundreds of tiny spiders crawled just beneath the surface of her skin and inside her stomach

“My offer comes with a present, it’s only fitting, since this will be a birthday of sorts- or would it be a rebirthday, since you’re going to be reborn?” The question must have been rhetorical, as she made no pause between it and the next, “can you guess, _drankonka_ , or would you rather wait and unwrap it?”

She didn’t even need a clue, though her knowing did not come from understanding Yelena to any degree. The answer was in Skye’s own transparency, and it was tough to get the words out as bile began to settle in her throat. At first, she couldn’t, and gagged. After another small sip of water, she breathed “Grant. My present is Grant Ward.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poll results ended up with the majority vote going to...
> 
> Option B: I write this into a trilogy, with the second part containing “mini-stories” that fill in the five year gap.
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who voted both on here, and on tumblr! To those who chose Option A or C, I'm sorry you didn't win, and hope that it doesn't impede your enjoyment of the story! 
> 
> I really hope that you enjoyed this chapter, and that it wasn't a big let down. Hawkeye and Skye were giving me a lot of trouble for this chapter, the rascals. I hope I did them justice. For better, or for worse, drop me a line and let me know what you thought, if you have the time and inclination to do so :)


End file.
